Five years after an unfinished ride from Hanoi to Da Nang, Indian filmmaker Ank Bakshi went back to Vietnam to finish the job. This February he landed in Hanoi, bought a motorbike, and spent five weeks riding roughly 2,100 km the length of the country to Ho Chi Minh City — funding the trip by working remotely along the way.
The route started in the northern highlands, where Bakshi took on the Ha Giang loop's winding passes and river valleys just months after a serious accident had put him in hospital for four weeks. From there came Cao Bang, where he attended an ethnic minority wedding, and Sa Pa, where he volunteered at a local school. Reaching Da Nang in May — the city where his 2021 attempt had turned around — he celebrated, then stayed two weeks in an apartment between My Khe Beach and the Son Tra Peninsula, riding past the Lady Buddha and Dragon Bridge and catching the Da Nang International Fireworks Festival.
Nearby Hoi An offered a slower pace: craft workshops where rice wine is brewed and a single handmade mat takes three hours to weave, plus a first Vietnamese cooking class that began with shopping for mushrooms, tofu and greens at a morning market. The long haul south brought a 300 km coastal stretch to Binh Dinh under fickle weather — blazing sun one minute, downpours the next — before the skyline of Ho Chi Minh City, now studded with skyscrapers and digital billboards he likens to New York. There he ate street food, visited Notre Dame Cathedral, the Walking Street cafe apartments and Nguyen Van Binh Book Street, then shipped the bike back to Hanoi for his brother to keep.
What stands out most in his account isn't the scenery — though he reckons Vietnam beats any AI-generated image — but the people. A Hue homestay host gifted him a new helmet when he lost his. Repairmen in Ho Chi Minh City inflated a flat tyre free of charge. A stranger in a storm strapped down his luggage to keep it dry. His Hanoi homestay owner pulled him into family meals and Lunar New Year traditions.
For travellers, the takeaway is straightforward: Vietnam remains one of the easiest and cheapest countries in Asia for a long-distance motorbike trip. Bikes are simple to rent or buy, remote work makes slow travel viable, and roadside help is rarely far away. You don't need five weeks — even a two-week run from Hanoi to Da Nang covers the northern highlands and the central coast's best stretches.
