Things you NEED TO KNOW before motorcycling VIETNAM!

Hey riders, Eric Lang with Ride Adventures here. Quick video to talk through some tips for you if you're ever going to ride a motorcycle in Vietnam. And to help me explain these tips, and the guy that actually came up with the tips, fortunately, here with me, Garrett Galvin. He's been on board with us for like six years now. Garrett came on board to do videography and basically all the videos you've seen up until now, just about all of them, he's the guy behind. And so it's just nice to see him on the other side of the camera for a change. But no, I think you're the guy to be here to explain again. Garrett was maybe six months ago or something like that, eight months ago, went over and spent some time in Vietnam, touring around, exploring, doing what we do basically before any new tour route is ever added to our website is to go and actually personally explore all this stuff and figure out what's the good and what's the bad. Yeah. That takes some time. That's what Garrett did. And so coming out of that, we've got some tips to share for people. Yeah. Essentially some tips that, if whether you're joining our next tour to Vietnam or you're somebody who's thinking about doing it on your own, I think all this stuff kind of applies. First one. All right, here we go. It says licensing and documentation. You mean there's paperwork involved here? Yeah. It's a, it's a pretty interesting thing. Like I've been to about 40 plus countries so far, and a lot of times, pretty much every single one says that, you know, get an international driving permit, like, you know, have your license, have an international driving permit, but not all of them are, you know, of course, as you know, regulated, you know, they're there. Depends on the police officer. Depends on the police officer and depends on, I guess, the funding of how much they want to enforce it. But for Vietnam, it is enforced. It is something that they, they have police checkpoints, but I never thought it was a, it's not a scary situation. Like they are really legitimately just making sure that you have a motorcycle endorsement and that you are driving legally. I never once got stopped and felt uncomfortable. It was literally just like, Hey, do you have this permit that you're required to have? And so, uh, luckily I did have it because I did read that it was an important thing and crazy enough, it, it really, it really was an important thing to have. So yeah, I did get stopped. I got asked definitely not one of those things to be like, ah, I could probably do without it. I definitely get it worth at least here in the U S it's as simple as about 25 or 30 bucks. Go to the AAA. I think in most countries around the world, it's going to your local auto club or whatever it's called. Yeah. Get this thing. It's kind of a throwaway. They're usually only good for one year, at least the triple is, but do you know what would happen if you did not have license? Did anyone tell you? No, let's not find out. I don't know. So easy just to get it taken care of. Yeah. It's a $20 solution. So another really big thing, uh, or a small thing, a little last end of this is that the lady almost forgot to stamp the motorcycle endorsement section of my international driving permit. So just make sure that they're stamping two places, your vehicle and your motorcycle endorsement on the international driving permit. Yeah. That is not only important at the level of law enforcement, maybe asking for your license, cause you have to prove you have a motorcycle license. But yeah, you know, a lot of these trips folks are doing through us are the renting of a motorcycle and we cannot rent to you a motorcycle without having that motorcycle endorsement from a couple of levels there. It's important to have that checked and you're right. They don't always remember to stamp that other section. It's so weird, but yeah. Yeah. They'll deliberately have to check it. I guess they're just not the majority of them are not motorcycle riders. So, uh, yeah, right. It's probably 99% non-riders that are going through AAA, right? Yeah. Um, next one, safety gear and what you should wear in Vietnam. Yeah. Um, safety gear. It's good to be safe. Um, especially, you know, coming from driving in Western, uh, states, uh, and going to drive in Asian countries, you're a little bit out of your element. So making sure you have all the protective gear just to keep you safe Vietnam specifically and specifically to the since the tour is kind of a 50, 50 dual sport, you're going to want to have basic, you know, CE level one is cool, you know, um, C level two, if you're really worried, but usually the speeds that we do in Vietnam, because there's, there's not many straight roads just to put it quickly, you know, time to get up speed, no time to get up speed. It is very curvy, very mountainous. Northern Vietnam is, is something else like that, but it's also, I don't know my personal take on it is that's kind of how I judge it. If I'm not doing very high speed, then I think, uh, the level one works. And so something like the Alpinestars bionic action, I believe is, is the one that, um, that is a level one and it's kind of, it's $169. Like it's really, it's a really easy, it's a lot of value. I think we sell it on our shop as well. Yeah. Yeah. A great job researcher. Uh, that's where I buy from. So I was just like, all right. So yeah, I think something like that. Um, of course, obviously helmet boots, um, Eric, you've done quite a few videos on what to show up looking like, or at least the philosophy of why having those separate armor systems and stuff like that, which probably come in handy for warm weather situations like Vietnam might be right. Yeah. That's another thing kind of what to wear. Right. So Vietnam in the North, you, you would think like generally Vietnam hot and humid, but in the North, it actually has a sort of winter. So if you're doing more of the North, you're going to want to have kind of a more of a all round set up as opposed to just like, you know, your super breathable warm weather attire stuff. It can get cold up North. It can get cold up North and wet. Like for our tour, we made it in a period of time where it's the driest possible situation. North Vietnam is very unpredictable. So like, even though we've timed it, timed it perfectly, it's still very unpredictable. So don't bring your cold, cold weather gear. Like I think the climb badlands, electric vests and stuff like that. No, no, no, no electric vests. It's not like that. It's like if it rains and you're not wearing a shell and you get wet, like you'll suffer a little bit, but you'll survive versus if you're doing middle of winter, if you're riding with a breathable jacket and you get wet, you're like dead in three hours versus you're just suffering when, when you're in Vietnam, you're like, oh, I'm wet. It's kind of chilly, but I can get through this next slide. Two hours or three hours of writing. It's not freezing temps, but it could get a little uncomfortable. Hopefully that gives you a little bit of a idea on what to wear. I think we plan on adding some Southern, more Southern Vietnam options and that, like you said, a little more generally warm further away from the North pole. All right. Next tip says adapt as quickly as you can to the local driving rules. This is more of a general tip. I think anytime you land in a foreign country, the quicker you are to adapt to the local driving rules, the quicker you are to be aware of what others are doing, the lower your chance of getting in a bad situation. Kind of like take an almost conscious effort to notice the differences from what, how you ride back home is to all of a sudden things are different. I've seen that. This is, yeah, I've seen it. Like I've seen like on tours where we have people come in and they don't really know the local rules. I've seen, sometimes they don't even think about it. Sometimes they just, they ride exactly like they would ride back at home. Maybe even more risky because they're on an adventure of a lifetime. They're like, yeah, I'm so pumped. But then they kind of forget to be super aware that things are different. And one thing that might be okay at their home might actually put them in a very dangerous situation in some of these countries. Best example globally is the, the possibility that your lane will be occupied. If you're going around a blind curve, your lane will be occupied by somebody coming towards you. Absolutely. The frequent, the chances of that changes around the world. It was very low chances in some countries and very high chance in others that someone could become directly in your path. Yeah. And so moderate your speed and things accordingly and just be constantly alert. With that example that you just gave another one came to my mind, especially in Vietnam, it's like there might be somebody like right behind you on the left of you. And if you like think you own this space and you, you kind of swerve, you can hit somebody. Like creeping right up on you, creeping up on, you know, typically in Vietnam, they're honking and stuff. They're letting you know, but you just got to be hyper aware and you can't be all loosey goosey on the road. You got to pretty much, you got to try to be as predictable as possible to everyone around you. That's kind of the thing they need to believe that you're going to stay the same. If they decide to like creep up on you or be right next to you, especially if you're in the cities, Good one. Staying safe out there. What's this next tip about mastering the art of honking? I got this really great clip. We'll play right now. I'm happy. I'm coming. Please let me go. Yeah. What do you do if you're scared? When I meet kids, they always wave you. Hello. Hello. But, uh, it's essentially honking is a little bit different here in the States. Honking is like how you tell somebody that you're not pleased with their behavior. So it's definitely only a negative use over there. It's not. No, it's negative use here. Oh yeah. I think for the most part. Am I wrong? Unless you're driving by your friend's house or something. Sure. Yeah. But there it's actually a form of communication. So they honk every time they pass you, they honk to let you know they're passing you on the left, passing on the right. I don't think we do that. We don't do that here. Definitely not. Yeah. Not in the US. But there it is. It is like that. A courtesy honk. Yeah. Like a courtesy flush or something. And then let's say there's a four way courtesy flush. I just popped my head. Well, it's glad to know where your head's at, but so let's say you're doing, you know, when I was in Indonesia, there was this four way and it was all blind. Like up until the point you're at the intersection, you didn't really see the other roads. And I remember like the way we would handle this intersection, there was no stop signs. The way we would just handle this intersection is essentially when you roll up on it, you honk to let the other people coming know that you're about to go. And if you hear a honk, that means slow down. And then you, when you meet eye contact, you decide who gets to go. But up until that point, when you're blazing through this intersection, you're like, honk, honk. And if nobody honks, then you're like, you're good. Really like communicating. And it works. But of course, some of these countries have the highest motorcycle accidents in the world, but it works most of the time. But anyway, down to the rules, master the art of honking in a sense too. Honking is a communication tool when you're in Vietnam. You'll know where that button is. Your thumb will be automatically drawn to it. You'll know how to get used to using it. It takes a day or two, but definitely. Next tip is plan your routes carefully. Yeah. I mean, okay. So let's say you're not taking one of our tours. You want to do something a little bit more self-guided. You want to do something where you're just coming to Vietnam to, to do your own thing. You know, it's in some of these countries, it's hard to stay up to date with the current like landslides and closures and stuff like that. I mean, I'm thinking of this one time where on the Hai Van Pass, more in central Vietnam, where I saw this really great route. And I was like, there was this one route that was going to take me like two hours to get through. And then there was this other route that, you know, I saw on Google maps go the other way and it was a lot shorter. It was like an hour. So I was like, I'm going to, I'm going to take that one. And then I was completely off-roading in a bush where we're on Google. It said it was a road, like an actual proper road. It was asphalt. But when I got there, it wasn't, it was just this, it was this off-roading section that was not taken care of, obviously. And it just got really bushy, really, really, yeah. It got really bad all of a sudden. And, um, and I had to turn around and of course go around, go back the original way, but, um, yeah, just do, do your best. Also know that you, you might, you can't really rely on Google maps. Okay. So was there a better, God, that's a, I don't know if I, that was a great tip for people. I just kind of told people that plan your routes, but it's not going to work. Yeah, exactly. So to, well, I guess the question would be also, was there a different app that you noticed was a little more up to date or with regards to those factors? Like, is this route passable by normal vehicles? And do you know, did you use satellite mode? Maybe would have helped me, but what on what app? Uh, no, you only mess with Google. I only mess with Google. I do maps me sometimes if you guys use maps me, it's pretty good. If you're part of one of our tour groups, you've got to, you know, local knowledge and the high likelihood of success to see that highlighted route that we've charted out for people. If you're going and doing something on your own, it sounds like a lot of the information might be not as up to date as it could be. Yep. Which however, I think leads to some of the best adventures sometimes. I'm kind of bummed to hear that you turned around when that one section wasn't working out. It's like, if I had a different bike, I would, I could have gone through it at the time. So I rode like multiple motorcycles while I was in Vietnam, the CRF 300 and uh, the XR 150. Sounds right. Yeah. So when I got into that off-road situation in the XR 150, I mean, and here's the thing about before I hear it in the comment sections, here's the thing about Vietnam off-roading. It's either pavement or gnarly off-road. Like there, there really isn't that many trails. It's not like here in the States, we have the forestry service and they kind of groom these off-road trails. There's logging trails that are nicely groomed either by trucks or by, you know, the, the forest, forest roads. But in Vietnam, it's like when you go off-road, it's, it's really off-road. So I've done some riding in Thailand and Laos and whatever, in any country with Columbia, for example, frequency of rain means such frequency in erosion on those roads and stuff. It would be ridiculous for them to constantly be grading those roads and prepping them to be, you know, smooth and rockless or rutless or whatever. So you probably got a lot of potential for change in those surfaces. Absolutely. Next tip I think sort of applies globally, but certainly in Vietnam, I'm sure as well. Be friendly and connect with the locals. Oh yeah. This is a, this is more of an opportunity. I mean, it's just kind of a reminder and opportunity to kind of try to connect. I mean, you are a guest in this country. Every country you visit, you're a guest and just anything you can do to kind of like show your respect and, you know, rep you're representing your country. So anything you can do to kind of show that is, uh, put your best foot forward is, is what we, what we all should be doing, but it's also opens up a lot of opportunity to bridge that gap and how, you know, I've been generally a nice person when I travel, I've made a big point to be as respectful as possible. And I find that it opens up a lot of really great opportunities. Like I I've had people invite me in to their homes, you know, they make this big party, they offer me, you know, whatever interesting thing like, Oh, my, my uncle made this moonshine basically. That's how you make friends globally. Yeah. Um, but they, but they, you know, it opens up this, like, Oh, this guy is cool. You know, I want to show them what my culture is about. I want to show them, you know, you, you get access to so much more when you are because, you know, it's very intimidating like to make that connection. But once you, I don't know, if you put your best foot forward, those bridges, those walls can come down and all of a sudden you're having dinner with the family and doing some fun stuff. Something you might've never thought was something you would never find. For example, I don't want to say never, but it's less likely to happen in the U S I feel like. Yeah. And some, a lot of countries, maybe Europe and whatever, less likely that we are going to reach out and be as welcoming of a stranger into our home or whatever, as, as much more common in places in South America and other parts of the world, Vietnam as well. And it's like, it can come as sort of a surprise and maybe a shock, or it might seem like something isn't going to work out from it, but there's also a high likelihood. Someone just wants to meet you and know what they can about you and show you their stuff and show you their culture, show you some moonshine with you. But surprisingly, I felt the Vietnam, uh, Vietnamese people were very warm and friendly. I've never, I never had a bad, bad interaction with anybody. All right. Next tip sort of applies, I think, to a lot of riding situations. You know, riders get excited about their motorcycle trips. Oh yeah. Might not be adrenaline keeping their body in shape to get ready for these things. They are ultimately exhausting events, especially if things don't go perfectly smoothly, but conserve your energy because you're going to need it is kind of the theme of that tip. Before conserving your energy, definitely work on some, you know, get your stretches down, do some walk, run, do whatever you do, go to the gym consistently, just kind of limber up. There's a little bit more energy that, that is taken from you when you're in a unfamiliar territory. Just take it easy. Uh, well, well, and then when you're in that country and your adrenaline is pumping and you're so excited to be there, just remind yourself to kind of like take it easy because like already being there is going to exhaust you. Like the, just learning all the new things, adapting the language barriers, all that is going to exhaust you, conserve that energy so that, you know, you're not the one at the end of the night being like, all right, I can't hang out for beers, guys. I'm done. I'm going to my bed and I'm staying in there. And like you're talking about comfortable temperatures possible up North. If it's hotter in the South, any hot temperature, remember to get those electrolytes to not only the water to keep yourself going if you're in hot weather, but that was one thing I struggled with in my first trip to Thailand, uh, Songkran, the Thai new year, the hottest time of the year. It's doable. You can get used to it after a couple of days for sure. But if you're not getting electrolytes to replace what you're sweating out constantly, that's a huge energy zapper. Yep. Heat stroke, heat exhaustion. Sometimes like people think they get like travelers, like upset stomach and they think it's like something they ate. But the reality is because they're not getting enough fluid. They're not getting electrolytes there. There's other things going on that they're not noticing because they're just not used to living in that kind of climate. You're also, your stomach's adjusting to a different cuisine and food and just, yeah, it's not necessarily that the food was bad or dirty or like a bug. It's, it's literally your body's in shock from the different microbiome is exposed to something completely different. And that happens on almost every international tour. I feel like there's like a second or third day where a lot of people start to just feel a little weird for a second. It's not getting sick. It's just a weird little adjustment shift that you go through back to normal 12 hours later. Yeah. And it is completely normal. Uh, the next one was, it says, be prepared to flow like water. Yeah. I think this kind of moonshine water. Okay. It's a, it's a quote from, uh, what do you mean? Float like water or wait, flow like water. Sting like a bee. Bruce Lee float like a butterfly or Muhammad Ali. One of the two. Oh God. Oh man. I'm going to hear that in the conversation. Uh, be prepared to flow like water. So yeah, coming to Vietnam, um, you're going to notice that it is more of a flow style of writing, a defensive flow style. And if you're someone who stops and goes like spontaneously, or like if you're jittery in your movements, that's when you're actually the most dangerous person on the road. Hey, we kind of talked about this before be predictable, be predictable. If you're on a path and you're going a certain speed could keep that consistent so that other people can gauge how fast they need to go or not need to go in order to just miss you. Cause everybody's making those calculations. And I have this one B roll. I'll show you right now of me crossing a mega roundabout in Hanoi. And just what you'll see in this footage is just people coming from every freaking direction. Like grandma, grandpa, young kids, like just everybody coming into this circle, trucks and vehicles, like just, and everybody's coming. Like there's people coming from literally 360 degrees, all, all directions. I'm glad I got that footage. Cause I, I need to show that to people. You need to see it, uh, to believe it, but flow like water kind of reminds me, Bolivia and some other places, there are parts of the world with traffic signals and roundabouts. There's no traffic signals, but the example is just that, that flow sort of takes over whatever traffic signals or signs, pay attention to your surroundings and what you're fitting into. And again, not being abrupt or anything like that. And at some point, absolutely traffic signals and signs don't mean anything in some of these places. La Paz, Bolivia is the first one that came to my mind. And if Vietnam is your first international tour, these are all really good things to know, but they'll also apply many to many places. Exactly. To that point, we were talking about keeping space around us. Riding in tight spaces is apparently pretty common. Yeah. The roads are really thin or they're really narrow. Even the bridges. I don't understand. Like I can't like some of these bridges, you could only fit either somebody who's walking or one motorcycle. These bridges, the bridges aren't really, there's a lot of bridges that aren't really made for vehicles. Like there are, but I mean, they're also, there's also foot bridges, motorcycles end up on the foot bridges. Exactly. And then there's narrow mountainous trails. It just gets really narrow. And so just be prepared for the tight spaces. Working with a lot of tight spaces kind of goes back to what I was saying, where you got this big of a road and the lines don't really matter. You just use whatever road, like even like people use the outside of the road, like the outer line, right? They just use whatever they can. I remember in Columbia, we were using the sidewalk to get around traffic because it's like everybody, that's just what you do politely, politely, of course. Yeah. This whole concept of personal space. I think Western societies, we, we kind of like, you know, this is my space much more so. Yeah. And in Vietnam and other Asian countries, it's like, if it sits, it fits next tip was that we only commented on Google not being so great for road updates and whatnot for Google maps, but downloading Google translate general travel tip does apply in Vietnam. Vietnam isn't necessarily in the cities to the younger kids, I should say, or they, they are, they know English. Like a lot of them you can get by really well, but outside rural North Vietnam, it is not as common to speak English. The smaller the town, the older, the person, the less likely it is. You're going to find English or something like that. Absolutely. And, and then there's some of the best people to bridge a gap with, to, to talk to. I just, the older generations, you know, who have like seen some stuff, you know, and, and they're also the most curious. They could also sometimes not be too curious because I, we had a, we've had some past historical differences, but if they're, if you're able to bridge that gap with, with the older population, they'll tell you all about it and you'll learn a new side of history, you know, that you, you didn't, you didn't know before. So Google translate, it's just kind of, for me, it's, it's a necessity to bring when you're traveling, just to like have those conversations, uh, figure out where you're going. Sometimes the local news, you know, like these people in the town know that the road ahead is like the landslide came and is totally unpassable. So you can save some time there. Okay. One last thing about this, and this is really important menus. Okay. We should be sponsored by Google translate by the way. Um, has this really cool feature where you, you've kind of video or, you know, put in photo mode and then over the menu and it will translate like in real time. Oh, I actually saw somebody. Yeah. And, and, you know, if you're, especially if you're like a picky eater, it's good to know what you're going to get before you get it in a sense, like, and especially in a place like Asia, to be honest for a Westerner, like if it's your first time going international, you can get a lot of surprise dishes that you just let's hope that you don't know what it actually is. Be prepared for breathtaking views in Vietnam. Really? Yeah. I'm joking. I've seen some of his photos. I've seen the, wow, what a place, you know, maybe I was running out of ideas for this tip video, but this is something I wanted to kind of end, uh, and this whole tip section, uh, or tip video with is that it is truly a beautiful country and it is full of surprises. It's full of adventure. It's full of people that are really nice and just warm. I mean, I had some experiences, um, like with some of the locals that was just like really cool stuff. And so, oh, and the writing, the writing's great. A lot of really great writing twisties bridges, water crossings. I mean, you name it just like a whole collection of awesome. Yeah. I kind of wanted to end this video kind of just showing some B-roll of how beautiful it is and how much. Before you went over there, I had read something or someone said the movie avatar was in some way graphically modeled after the topography and landscapes of Vietnam or whatever. And I actually started to notice that when you, when I started seeing your photos that you brought back, I don't even know how quite to describe it. Maybe you can make a point to show some of that stuff, but like there's certain scenes that you had in certain villages with sort of mountainous backgrounds or whatever. It just reminded me of avatar. Yeah. Was that you that told me that about the, you know, it's really funny, Eric. I said that, but then I researched it later and I was like, is that right? And I was wrong. Okay. So it was actually, it was, uh, I told you, but it was actually, um, God, who is, who's the director? Michael Bay was the avatar guy. Sounds about right. Anyway, one of those big famous directors, I got inspired to make those beautiful towering floating mountains, uh, in avatar, but it was from, it was from a place in China. And, uh, I'm sorry, I misled you. If you're a fan of the movie avatar, one thing people are familiar with is I think it's Halong Bay. I've heard of it. Yeah. So it's, um, that's actually one of the days on the tour into the Halong Bay and it's just, it's world famous. It's like these towering lush green, beautiful. I don't even know. Like to me, it's a, it's a mountain, but I know, like, I don't know, I don't want to upset some people Hills versus mountains, but it's like Hills mountains that just tower out of the sea. And it's just like an infinite horizon of them. So it's like, it's, it's just something else that I haven't experienced anywhere else. So, well, hopefully some of that helps some of you get ready and not just ready, but excited for Vietnam. Like we've mentioned, we've got this first tour that we started offering this year. I think the plan is to definitely go back and get some more prepared for other people to see Southern Vietnam, for example, expanding what we're already doing in other parts of Southeast Asia. Like I said, we have some Thailand options running and, um, yeah, I want to keep going over there because again, I've only ridden Thailand and Laos before, but they sit right here in my heart as far as just great places in the world to find beautiful, sweet, calm, demeanored, cool people that are fun to be around and welcoming and the food and the country. So, yeah, hopefully that helped you guys know what to expect for people either coming with us, uh, this, this March or in April, or you guys heading on your own and coming to Vietnam and experiencing really the awesomeness. Definitely filling up, by the way, it seems like this pandemic thing is pretty well over because we're announcing these tours. And, and so some of these countries, especially Southeast Asia were very tightly restricted for a few years there with, with, uh, travel restrictions and whatnot. But wow, it seems like a lot of people were waiting to get over there. And so now we're booking these things out. Yeah. So, well, Hey, hope it helps. If you have questions, leave them in the comments below. One of us will get back to you. Garrett's the expert on Vietnam at this point, but, uh, thanks for watching everyone and see you soon.