Hai Van Pass

The first time I went over the Hai Van Pass in a bus, years ago, I thought it would be a great trip by motorbike. Me from 19 years ago was correct! Jeremy Clarkson and Top Gear have now made it the most famous road in Vietnam and taking a motorbike over the pass is now big business. Since I was last here, they’ve built a tunnel under the mountain and the vast majority of the traffic now uses the tunnel. This leaves the Pass for motorbikes, petrol tankers, trucks carrying animals (none of which are allowed in the tunnel) and a few tour buses. So the road is much better than before.

(When I went over the pass the first time, I saw a bus in a similar position to the bus at the end of the film ‘The Italian Job’ (the original film), with half the bus hanging off the edge of a cliff.)

Yesterday I picked the rental company that let me try the bike and said they’d get the speedometer fixed for me before bringing the bike to where I was staying. The newly fixed bike arrived on time at 8am and the guy took my luggage away with him to transport to Hue. I set out and drove the coastal road to Danang. Going through Danang was a bit busy but not as bad as I expected and soon I was starting to wind my way up the Pass.

When we drove over on Saturday I mentally marked some viewpoints where I wanted to stop but actually I ended up stopping more because the views were so amazing and it was easy to stop. This view is the first glimpse of Lang Co beach at the northern side of the Pass.

I took a break at the top and had a drink at a cafe then started down the other side. On Saturday we saw a very disturbing sight – a truck packed full of dogs in cages, on their way to the dog meat trade. It was very sad and I wanted to open the truck and let them all escape. I didn’t see any trucks like that today, thankfully.


The Pass was definitely the highlight of the journey. Once at the bottom, the rest of the journey was ok. I took the longer route around the lagoon but didn’t see as much of it as I hoped because of buildings in the way. There was some pretty farmland. The last bit into Hue was very busy. I arrived at 5pm during rush hour. I’d splashed out (£13!) on a nicer hotel since I knew I’d be tired after the drive so once I’d waited for someone to bring me my luggage and collect the bike, I went for a swim in the hotel pool.