A must day trip in Vietnam!
Basic information:
- Hoi An to Hue
- 136 km
- 1 day
- bike rental 15$
- petrol 6$
- luggage transfer 2$
This is a story of an epic motorbike ride from Hoi An to Hue over the Hải Vân Quan mountain pass.
We got the idea when we're thinking how to go to Hue and that we'd like to also have a quick stop in Da Nang and not spent the whole day there because we were a little strapped on time.
The first problem we had to solve was our luggage. We had a lot of bags that would really spoil the fun of driving over the mountain pass and overall experience.
The second problem was that it wasn't a round trip so we had to rent the bikes in Hoi An and return them in Hue.
Lucky for us that we were able to put our luggage on a bus in Hoi An and pick it up in Hue. All of this was arranged at the "travel agency" where we rented our motorbikes which also had an office in Hue and we could leave the bikes there instead of Hoi An.
Everything cost around 23$ + 0.5$ for a rain jacket because the weather wasn't looking too good (Luckily it didn't rain)
The first part of the ride was pretty mellow, driving true small towns and rice fields. After a while, we came to the outskirts of Da Nang where the traffic got more and more condensed and chaotic. But we were used to the traffic from Ho Chi Minh so we were alright.
From the road, we immediately saw a big "Buda" statue so we decided to check it out. It was the Non-Nuoc Pagoda. It was very nice so we went off the bikes and had a little look around.
From there on we decided to go straight up the mountain pas of Hải Vân Quan. We had some navigational problems but nothing that some GPS couldn't solve.
The ride up the mountain pass was amazing. Nice sharp corners with spectacular views everywhere you looked. We stopped a few times to take some pictures. The rods were not the crowded because all the bigger traffic goes true the tunnel underneath the mountain.
On the other side of the pass, the amazing views continued all the way to the city of Hue.
There weren't a lot of restaurants on the way so we stopped at a place that looked like it might be a restaurant and went in. To this day I'm not sure if the women who cooked for us was just that friendly and made us lunch or we were in a really 'homey' restaurant.
When we came to Hue we did a quick circle around the city to see some of the city sights, before returning the motorbikes and picking up our luggage.
It was an amazing experience! I highly recommend it to anyone who would like to experience Vietnam in a more native way. The whole day experience cost us around 25$ a person.
Quick tips:
- take a map or have a data plan that you can use GPS
- take it easy
- stop for lunch in bigger cities
- have fun
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You can read more about my experiences in Vietnam here:
- 10$ Lobster in Mui Ne, Vietnam
https://steemit.com/food/@zalb/eating-lobster-in-mui-ne-vietnam - Ancient town of Hoi An, Vietnam
https://steemit.com/photography/@zalb/ancient-town-of-hoi-an-vietnam