Top Gear ran a special episode in 2008 (series 12, episode 8) called the ‘Vietnam Special’ which featured the presenters Jeremy Clarkson, James May and Richard Hammond journeying 1,000 miles from Ho Chi Minh City to Halong Bay, near Hanoi by motorbike. During their adventures they went via the Hai Van Mountain Pass which Jeremy Clarkson called it, “…a deserted ribbon of perfection — one of the best coast roads in the world”.

Since this episode aired, tourists from all over the world flock to drive the featured roads. Companies in Vietnam sell the ‘Top Gear experience’ by offering group tours, either being a passenger on the back of a bike or driving yourself.

Well, we couldn’t ignore such an exciting experience and decided to ride between Hue to Hoi An via the famous mountain pass. After many street offers by agents, we found a company online called Le Family Riders who rank very highly on TripAdvisor, with over 1,578 happy customers. Costing $50 (£37) including entrance fees, drinks and lunch. Beware, due to their success there are many fake companies using their name so only book direct.

We got picked up from our hostel in Hue by Uy (known to us as Captain) and joined our group of fellow motorbikers, all who were westerners and couples. We got kitted up with a Le Family Riders jacket so we could easily spot our group, and were heavily knitted up with protective gear such as a helmet, elbow and knee protectors and gloves. Our large backpacks and everyone else’s luggage went into one of their cars that went ahead of our group, to wait at the finish point of the tour. This worked out really well for us as it saved on normal transportation costs to travel to our next destination. We also really hoped we would see our luggage again!

After my first motorbike experience in Sapa, Vietnam, I was feeling pretty confident so we both chose to ride motorbikes by ourselves to get the full experience. You have the option of choosing between an automatic or manual bike depending on your ability. I would recommend an automatic bike, so you don’t need to worry about gears unless you already have lots of previous experience.

The roads were great fun to drive but be warned, there are lots of bends with sharp tight corners so require full concentration and the usual battle with the vietnamese traffic that seem to not abide by any rules! So if you’re not confident of driving, I would highly recommend going on the back of one of  the bikes with one of the guides.

Onto the journey itself!

The journey between Hue to Hoi An only takes 3 hours direct but via the pass, it takes longer and the tour includes lots of interesting stops along the way.

We stopped at a local fishing village, swam at the Elephant Falls, had lunch at an amazing floating restaurant where the food just kept coming out, had a coffee fix at the top of the pass called Ha Van Quan and explored the Marble Mountains in Da Nang.

Tips:

• Suncream! It’s easy to burn on a bike, especially when your more concerned with focussing your full attention on the roads, so cover up or plaster yourself in sunscreen
• Stick close to the group – there were several Le Family members that made sure they were paced throughout the group, one always remains at the back. The traffic lights or general traffic sometimes spilt the group up but they always managed to keep everyone together.
• Exhaust pipes – they get super hot so watch out when getting on-and-off the bike

I would highly recommend Le Family Rider for anyone considering doing this, as they provided a safe and fun days activity.