have a real adventure

Please note that Vietnam is a developing country and it can be difficult to find good-quality clothes in Western sizes. While locally made products are cheap, the quality is often poor. Here are some suggestions:

– Clothing: long pants, long-sleeved shirt, light rain jacket, (riding) boots or sneakers and sunglasses or goggles.
– Personal items: camera, travel towel and sunscreen.
– Emergency items: emergency contact numbers, a list of medical conditions and list of medications.

As of January 2019, regular passport holders from 24 COUNTRIES below DO NOT need a tourist visa for Vietnam, if they stay less than 15 days. More info here: https://vietnamembassy-thailand.org/which-countries-are-exempt-from-vietnam-visa/

This is the official website to obtain a visa-on-arrival, if you would like to stay longer:
https://evisa.xuatnhapcanh.gov.vn/trang-chu-ttdt

If you are new to travel in Vietnam or Sri Lanka or if you find the visa process daunting, Hoi An Motorbike Adventures can assist you in getting a visa on arrival. Hoi An Motorbike Adventures is a reputable business and can supply you with a letter of approval on request.

For more information email info@hama-motorbike.local.

It’s essential to have strong footwear for the tour to protect your feet while driving. Trekking shoes or leather boots are perfect. No driving in open-toed shoes is permitted.

We can make reservations for you at any hotel in Hoi An or Hue, and we can also organize a car to pick you up from the airport or train station.

For longer tours we provide you with spacious saddle bags that can carry a large amount of belongings. It’s also possible to strap a further bag or rucksack onto the bike rack if required. However, we do recommend you pack sensibly and consider each item carefully – don’t over pack. When you book the tour you will be given a list of suggested items to bring along.

Any other luggage may be left safely in storage at your hotel or in our office until you return. We also offer free transfers of your big luggage if you book a tour from Hoi An to Hue or vice versa.

For our longer tours we offer a support van free of charge if the group size is 8 or more riders.

All our tours are open for others to join in, unless you have booked a private tour.

The minimum size for us to be able to organise a tour is 2 people. We generally like to keep the groups to about 6 motorbikes or about 10 people. This is a comfortable number of men and machines for a tour leader to handle and to ensure each person gets the attention they deserve. Safety is our main concern and as you can imagine bikes can start to get strung out over quite a large distance if there are too many, reducing the tour leader’s ability to keep everyone in his or her field of vision.

HAMA can/has and will gladly organise tours for larger groups if necessary. If the group size starts to become too large we will either include a second tour leader or third who will float around the pack to help look after peoples’ safety and to answer any questions they may have.

Of course it is! One of the great things about any tour of this kind are the friendships you will form with not only the tour leader, but also the other adventurous souls out there with you. When possible, we try to link individuals together. The more advance warning, the better.

On average, we will be on the bike for 50% of the day. The rest of the time is used for drink stops, meal breaks, and photo-ops.

This only applies to self-riders on our motorbike tours.

We take great care of our motorbikes. If you damage them on tour, we need to fix them. We take a security deposit between 1.000.000 VND and 10.000.000 VND, depending on the trip you take, to cover damage to the bike while it is in your possession on the tour. If the damage exceeds this amount you are responsible for it. We are in the business of ensuring your adventure is exciting and memorable. We are not in the business of overcharging or trying to take your money for damage. We are honest and fair and simply want to keep our bikes in the condition in which you received them.

Accidents and incidents on our tour are rare, though when they occur you are responsible for covering the cost to fix the bikes, up to and including full replacement value in the rare (really, rare) event of a write-off. Depending on the bike you choose you are looking at 1,500 USD for a Minsk (as they are becoming rare), 2,000 USD for a scooter, and 3,500 USD for a dirt bike. We do our best to take great care of you on tour, though we cannot ride the bike for you. So if in doubt, grab a driver and enjoy the ride from the best seat in the house!

We also offer comprehensive motorcycle damage insurance for 15 USD per bike per day.
For more info please email us.

All our motorbike tours start from our office (Nguyen Chi Thanh St, Trang Keo hamlet, Cam Ha Commune, Hoi An city, Quang Nam, Viet Nam). For private tours and our jeep tours we will pick you up from your hotel. We also pick you up from your hotel for our early morning My Son tour.

The minimum age required to operate a motorcycle by HAMA is 18 but no one is too young or old for the adventure. We have taken pillion passengers as young as four and our oldest rider was 72.

The short answer to this is no. The legal riding age in Vietnam is 18 years of age. This is one road rule, especially for foreigners that is stringently enforced by police. Your insurance policy will not cover you in the event of an accident. Persons under 18 must ride as a pillion.

Vietnamese roads are busy and you must always expect the unexpected. People don’t give way and will merge onto busy roads without looking. This may sound scary, but the Vietnamese drive more slowly than we do at home. If you drive slowly and expect the unexpected, you will be fine. We always use the quietest roads to get out of town, even if they are longer. Once out in the countryside, the level of traffic drops off remarkably and on some roads it is possible to not pass a single vehicle for the whole day. That said, it must be emphasised that the conditions here are demanding and extremely defensive driving is imperative. All riders must be very careful and be fully aware that the purpose of the trip is not to ride performance bikes hard into the bends, but rather to trundle along nice and slowly and to enjoy the sights and sounds. Your tour leader will also ask you to perform a test ride before starting out.

For a more comprehensive guide to riding in Vietnam go to the page Driving in Vietnam.

There is no easy answer to this question, as every situation will be different. The simplest answer is to ride slowly and safely, and don’t crash. If you are involved in an accident, you can expect hundreds of locals to crowd around and give their account of events, even if they didn’t see it. As foreigners, we are usually held to blame because we don’t understand Vietnamese road conditions and because we are wealthier, even if the accident was not our fault. It’s usually just a case of handing over some money to pay for band-aids and repairs, and then moving on. The police will usually not get involved unless there is a serious injury or you are unable to reach an agreement with the other party. The guide will help you, and it is important to remain calm. It could take some time to sort out the details if the police do get involved. If you are injured, the guide will do everything they can to get you to medical attention as quickly as possible. We carry first-aid kits, as local medical centres may not stock many supplies. In case of a serious injury, you may need to be evacuated to another country.

We ask for a deposit of 25% -30% of the tour costs in order to confirm your booking(s). We will provide you with the necessary bank account details to transfer this deposit once a ride has been agreed upon.

Our booking conditions can be found here.

You can pay via bank transfer into our bank account in Vietnam before the tour, online per PayPal or in cash in VND, USD, EUR or AUD at our office in Hoi An. We also offer credit card payment at our office.

Email info@hama-motorbike.local for details.

In terms of costs we cover everything except telephone calls, tips, souvenirs, alcoholic drinks and personal medical insurance. It is always advisable to carry at least a couple hundred thousand VND on your person as you never know when you might need it.

We will pick you up from your hotel. For some of our longer tours, we will arrange a pre­departure briefing session at our shop or at your hotel to introduce to you the route and the bikes and cover any other outstanding issues.

Licensing in Vietnam is extremely complex. Whilst Vietnam is a signatory to the convention recognising international licences, the local law requires the licence to be in Vietnamese or the licence holder hold a local licence (which is essentially impossible for a tourist to get.) Word is getting around about the convention however a several automobile associations are starting to list Vietnam as a country recognising the licences. That said, it doesn’t necessarily mean the local police will accept your international licence. So, we recommend you ride safely and don’t have an accident! We recommend you make your own enquiries regarding insurance and licensing here. There are insurers will insure you riding in Vietnam and also those who will insure you as long as you have a motorbike licence at home. We are not licensing or insurance experts and don’t pretend to be. You need to be happy with your own situation.

If it all sounds too hard – jump in a jeep or grab a driver!

Please contact us via email info@hama-motorbike.local for information on travel in Vietnam, Laos or Sri Lanka, or we can chat with you online on Skype, our screen name is motorbiketours-hoian. We also have a comprehensive list of booking conditions here.

We do not offer third-party insurance or personal insurance. You are responsible for finding your own travel and medical insurance. If you damage one of our bikes, you will be liable for all repairs, unless you opt for our optional bike damage insurance. Vietnam does not have an insurance culture, and if two bikes are involved in a crash then the riders will usually settle in cash on the spot. The police will take a cut if they get involved. Every tourist who rides a motorbike in Vietnam is responsible for their own actions. Whether you ride the bike yourself or ride as a pillion with one of our guides, you will need to make sure that your travel and medical insurance covers you in the case of an accident. As a pillion, you should be covered by your insurance provider as all of our drivers have local licences. However, you may need to check that your policy covers motorcycle transport, whether you drive or not.

If you have never ridden a motorbike before, Vietnam is probably not the place where you want to learn to ride. The roads and traffic conditions are chaotic. When you are on the back of a bike, you can relax and see more of the scenery. We highly recommend that you ride on the back of the guide’s bike or jump in a jeep if you have no experience at all. You really won’t enjoy trying to keep a motorbike upright while trying to take in the scenery.

For a more comprehensive guide to riding in Vietnam go to the page Driving in Vietnam.