Riders who have decided to do one of our Southeast Asia tours almost always ask the same thing next: which one should I do first?
It is a fair question, and the honest answer is not whichever suits you. These are genuinely different weeks, and picking the wrong one first is the difference between a trip you repeat and a trip you endure.
The numbers
| Northern Thailand | Vietnam | |
|---|---|---|
| Days | 9 | 10 |
| Riding days | 6 | 8 |
| Distance | 525 km | 438 km |
| Climbing | 3,225 m | 5,791 m |
| Average day | 88 km · 538 m | 55 km · 724 m |
| Group size | 8–15 | 8–12 |
| Bike | Road bike | Hardtail or gravel, 40 mm or wider |
| Runs | December and January | February |
The numbers already tell you most of it. Thailand covers more ground on flatter roads. Vietnam covers less on considerably more climbing, spread across two extra riding days.
The roads are the real difference
Northern Thailand is a road bike week and the roads deserve one. They are in excellent condition, including the quiet backroads, which is not something you can say about much of Southeast Asia. Two stretches of main highway appear across the week and neither is a penance. One of them, on Day 7, is among the best riding of the tour.
Vietnam is a mix, deliberately. Dirt trail that turns slushy when the weather has been unkind. Narrow concrete roads, one of which is a paved-over section of the original Ho Chi Minh Trail. Long stretches of smooth tarmac on the modern Ho Chi Minh Road. Several ferry crossings, which are part of the route rather than an inconvenience.
You do not need to be a hardened gravel rider for Vietnam. You do need to be comfortable with some rough stuff, and to not mind it.
Where you sleep
Thailand stays in comfortable hotels throughout.
Vietnam does not, and the difference is concentrated in one night. Day 8 is a large traditional wooden house on stilts in a genuinely remote setting: a casual café downstairs, mattresses laid out dorm-style upstairs, three or four shared toilets, enough sockets for the group. It is basic and we would rather say so plainly.
It is also the night riders talk about afterwards.
How remote is remote
Both routes go well away from the usual tourist circuit. Vietnam goes further.
From the moment the ferry leaves Hoi An, Vietnam's roads are close to empty, with very few vehicles at all for most of the week, until the last twenty kilometres or so approaching Hue. Almost nobody you meet will speak English. That stops nothing, and conversations happen anyway, out of a few words and a lot of gesturing.
Thailand's route also spends most of its time away from where visitors go, but it is not as far off the map, and the infrastructure around you reflects that.
The climbing
Thailand's hardest day is Day 5, riding towards Thaton, with two climbs of roughly five kilometres and then three. Doi Suthep, which finishes the tour, is about nine kilometres at a steady five to seven per cent with a properly steep last eight hundred metres. It is the climb you remember, but it is not the hardest.
Vietnam's terrain turns hilly over the final four days and stays that way. Day 7 is the hardest of the week: two long sustained climbs with a descent between them, the second steeper than the first.
If those figures do not mean much on their own, the difficulty grades page sets out what a day of either size actually asks for.
The calendar decides part of it
Northern Thailand runs in December and January. Vietnam runs in late February.
If you are thinking about doing both in one season, the order is settled for you. And it happens to be the right order anyway.
So which one first
Northern Thailand, for most riders.
It is the gentler introduction to a supported week abroad: long days, but on smooth roads with modest climbing, comfortable hotels every night, and an unhurried pace built around coffee stops and long lunches. If your riding is mostly road, if this is your first multi-day tour outside India, or if you are bringing a group with mixed appetites for roughing it, start here.
Vietnam is the one to do when you want the adventure rather than the ride. Dirt and concrete and ferries, hills that keep coming, a night on a mattress in a stilt house, and a route that sees so few outsiders that people come out to talk to you. If getting well off the beaten track is the point rather than the price, go straight to Vietnam and do not bother easing into it.
Neither is harder than the other in any way a training plan would recognise. They are different kinds of week, and the honest question is not which you are fit enough for but which one you actually want.
Reading on, and booking
Each route has its own article, written from the recce rather than from a brochure: the Ho Chi Minh Trail post covers what the Vietnam days actually ride like, and the Chiang Rai to Chiang Mai post does the same for Thailand.
Full itineraries, what is included, dates and prices are on the Tour of Northern Thailand and Vietnam Adventure pages.
Riders flying from India ask the same questions about both: what the bike costs to fly, how many connections it has to survive, whether to rent instead. That is covered on our page for riders flying out of India.
Written by Krish.
