You Shall Hai Van Pass

When you just need to feel the thrill of curved tarmac under two wheels.

The city of Da Nang lies between Hue, in the North, and Hoi An, to the South. It is more than possible to travel from to Da Nang to Hoi An in a single day and back, however, to travel from Da Nang to Hue and back in a day is no easy feat and if you want the pleasure of a scenic route, it requires negating the Hai Van Pass – a mountainous road that offers its fair share of excitement and beauty.

A river view on the way North towards the Pass.

After a hearty, Tay (Westerner) breakfast at Hang’s, it was time to hit the road and traverse some mountains. Unfortunately, a quick Google search would’ve helped saved a fair amount of backtracking before even reaching the start of the Hai Van Pass.

Courtesy of Google Maps. Da Nang lies to the south of the map and the Hai Van Pass is marked by the black circle. The blue circle indicates a tunnel route through the mountain.

The ‘motorbike ferry’ terminal.

There are two routes north towards Hue – one is a tunnel through the mountains to the West (the blue circle, above) and the other is a mountain road around the side of the slopes, to the East (the black circle, on the map above). To take the tunnel route, you have to use a motorbike ferry service – you pack your bike onto the back of a truck and then ride on a bus through the mountain tunnel (unless you have a four-wheeled vehicle of your own, that isn’t full of flammable liquid). Lacking a car, the only choice available would be to give up any chance of coastal views and submit to being trapped on a minibus, so it was a U-turn and a route correction to find the mountain passes we were looking for.

A temple immediately before heading north onto the Hai Van Pass.

At the top of the mountain, there were a number of small (and typically overpriced) shops selling snacks and some old battlements that you could freely scramble over to take photographs.

Thừa Thiên-Huế province is the area North of Da Nang, that Hue lies in.

There are multiple turret bunkers and ruins that mark the peak of the main road through the pass. Apparently, there is a steep route to the very top of the mountain, past the Old Gate structure.

As for the mountain road itself, there are numerous potholes and the combination of Vietnamese traffic, undulating turns and sharp inclines that don’t make for an easy ride if you lack confidence. If you have the ability to tilt on a bike and control your speed well – it is certainly an exercise in fun; if you aren’t too used to moving with your bike, it may be more of an exercise in controlling bodily fluids. The added obstacles of farm animals ranging from goats to cattle, also help to increase the skill needed to comfortably negate the pass.

Go, go, Goats.

As for my journey to Hue, it was just too late in the day to make it there and back before nightfall, so accepting defeat, it was a second run through the Hai Van Pass and a chance to appreciate the road just a little bit more.

Overall?

If nothing else than to ride a motorbike and see coastal views – the Hai Van Pass is worth it. As long as you know your bike and how to manage your speed through winding roads, it certainly is more than worth doing. Enjoy the view, soak up the adrenaline and then find religion as lorries are hurled incoming, on your side of the road.

Godspeed be with you, and if not, some good ol’ fashioned Viet-speed will have to do.