---
type: Country
title: Vietnam
description: Northern Vietnam by rented motorbike — 60 million bikes, expressways that ban them, hospitality that refuses payment at every stop, and a border with China you cannot cross without a visa.
tags: [vietnam, motorbike, hospitality, hmong, rice-terraces, borders, road-trip]
timestamp: 2026-08-05T18:30:00Z
---

# Vietnam

Harry's coverage so far is a solo motorbike trip through the far north — Hanoi to
[Mu Cang Chai](/places/mu-cang-chai.md), then on to
[Lao Cai](/places/lao-cai.md) on the Chinese border.

*Obs: the video carries an eSIM sponsorship and card affiliate links. No provider
is recorded here.*

## Riding here

The practical core of the page.

- **A Honda costs just under $10 a day**, and is what he's told to rent because
  they're the most reliable.
- **Over 60 million motorbikes** in the country, and **upwards of 8,000 road
  deaths a year** *(from video – unverified)*. Traffic drives on the opposite side
  from the UK.
- **Motorbikes are banned from the expressways**, and this is the single biggest
  problem of the trip: Google Maps routed him onto them three separate times, at
  the cost of hours. See [don't trust Google Maps](/tips/dont-trust-google-maps.md).
- **The fix that worked**: deleting and reinstalling the app, after which
  motorbike routing finally appeared.
- **Petrol at 22,000 a litre.**
- **Vietnamese drivers are slow and give bikes room**, in his assessment — the
  lorries are the exception.
- **38–40 °C in the lowlands**, and he burns badly before covering up.

## People

The half of the trip he didn't plan and rates highest.

- **Payment is refused, repeatedly.** In a village where he stops for directions he
  is given a drink, shown around and sent off having failed to pay for anything;
  the same happens at an ice stall and with a free lemonade.
- **The further from a city, the warmer people get** — his own rule, stated on
  camera and then demonstrated for four days.
- **Everyone wants to know if he's married**, and several people offer to
  introduce him to a wife.
- **The pipe is everywhere.** A tobacco water pipe passed to visitors as a matter
  of course; he is taught the technique properly at a roadside stall and notes he
  has smoked one in every Vietnam video he's made.
- **Beer is drunk over ice** from communal crates, and toasts are constant. He
  keeps refusing more because he's riding.
- **English is rare, including among the young**, which surprises him — he expected
  the younger generation to have more.

## Food

Fried rice, beef, tofu, river fish — and a fertilised duck egg he calls disgusting
and washes down with beer. In the mountains, dinner is a chicken that was alive an
hour earlier; asked its name, the host says it doesn't have one, because naming it
would make killing it harder.

## History and development

- **The war is called the American war here.** Harry's summary: the communist
  north backed by China and the Soviet Union, the US-backed south, and today a
  single-party communist state with the division still readable in the landscape
  and the stories.
- **More developed than he expected**, and he says so twice — the moment that
  triggers it is an electric sign in a mountain village.
- **The lowland industry is visible in the water.** He passes a lake the wrong
  shade of green and won't swim in it.

## The Chinese border

- **The crossing at Lao Cai is open, and closed to him**: China requires a visa in
  advance and there is none on arrival.
- **A gate runs the entire length of the border**, which he hadn't expected —
  he'd assumed a fence with gaps. He reads that unfenced stretches exist far to the
  east.
- **He apologises on camera for the title**, having failed to cross.

## Source

- [Solo Journey to Vietnam's Border with China 🇻🇳](/videos/8LtGV7T8ODE.md) —
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8LtGV7T8ODE