May 14, 2026 — Preparation
Getting the Ride
Every motorcycle trip has one non-negotiable starting point: you need a motorcycle. Obvious, sure. And yet finding the right one ended up being the biggest part of this whole preparation process.
The main constraint I was working with: whatever I ride has to be something I can legally operate in Vietnam without a motorcycle license. That narrows things down quite a bit. After going through the available options and doing the usual agonizing over specs I only half understand, I landed on the Vinfast Evo Lite — a brand-new model released just this year.
What makes it stand out from everything else in the license-free category is one specific feature: it’s the first no-license scooter in Vietnam with a battery swap system. The bike runs on two batteries housed inside the frame. You can charge them the traditional way via cable, but you also have the option to pull into a swap station, hand over your dead batteries, and ride away with fully charged ones in minutes.
Vinfast claims there are already 45,000+ swap stations operating across the country. If that’s true in practice, the “range problem” that kills most e-scooter trips essentially disappears — it becomes roughly similar to stopping for gas on a petrol bike. Whether those stations are actually out there when I need them in the middle of nowhere is, frankly, one of the main things this whole trip is designed to find out.
Buying the Thing
I bought the Evo Max Lite (2026) brand new from a Yamaha dealership.
One thing anyone planning to do the same should know upfront:
Foreigners without a Temporary Residence Card (TRC) cannot register a vehicle in their own name in Vietnam. You need a trusted local friend willing to be the official owner on paper.
The purchase itself was painless — under an hour, start to finish.
The breakdown:
- Bike price: ₫16,700,000 ( $634/ ~€540)
- Batteries: Not included — purchased or rented separately
- Battery deposit: ₫500,000 ( ~$19 / ~€16) per battery
- Monthly battery rental fee: ~$6.45 (₫170,000 / ~€5.50) per battery per month
There’s a small wrinkle: the dealership could only locate one battery at the time of purchase. They’re “working on finding the second one.” I’m choosing to believe them.
Getting the Plates
Here’s the mildly surprising part: even a license-free electric scooter needs to be officially registered and plated. The dealership is handling all the paperwork with the traffic authority — which is a relief, because bureaucracy in a language I don’t speak at all is its own kind of adventure I’d rather delay.
Update: From the day of purchase, it took 14 days to get the official license plates on the bike.
Pre-start Nuances:
Weight: Weight significantly affects the total distance you can travel on a single charge. In the official advertising, the manufacturer claims a range of 85 km (52 miles) on a single battery in economy mode, based on a rider weighing 65 kg.
My actual setup is a rider weight of 72 kg plus 10 kg of luggage.
Update on the battery
Unfortunately, I was unable to get a second battery. The seller simply told me they were out of stock. For the first week, they kept saying they were looking for one or had ordered it, but in the end, they just said, “Sorry, but that’s how it is—no battery.” We called other dealerships, and they all said the same thing: they do not provide second batteries.
It is definitely a strange situation. I personally saw dozens of scooters with identical, swappable batteries sitting right there in the distributor’s warehouse, yet they couldn’t rent even one of them to me.
600 Kilometers South: The Pre-Trip Journey
Before starting the official ride from the southernmost point of Vietnam to the north, I had to travel from 📍Mui Ne (Phan Thiet) to 📍Cape Ca Mau. This pre-trip distance is about 613 km (380 miles). The start was delayed by 4 days due to paperwork at the dealership, which took a full week. Once the police documents were ready, I got the license plate the next day and set off the following morning.
May 26 – Two Days Before the Official Start
The Numbers
- Distance driven today: 330 km (205 miles)
- Money spent today: 401,000 VND
- Route: Mui Ne to My Tho
- Road quality: 5/5
Road Journal
I departed at 6:30 AM. There were no major adventures planned for today—just driving down the highway. My main goal was to cover as much ground as possible while testing the real-world battery range under my actual weight and checking the density of the battery-swapping stations along the route.
Tested Battery Ranges:
Sport Mode [Max speed 49 km/h (30 mph)]: The battery lasts for 42–50 km (26–31 miles).
Eco Mode [Max speed 32 km/h (20 mph)]: The battery lasts for 70–75 km (43–46 miles).
After figuring out these ranges, I initially planned to use 50% of the battery in Sport Mode, and then use the app to find the nearest swapping station. By the third swap, I realized this strategy did not work.
I stopped for a coffee after using half the battery, checked the map, and realized I had been driving too fast. The nearest station was too far to reach, even if I go Eco Mode for the rest of the way. I had to ask the café owner to let me plug in the scooter using my portable charger. Ended up resting in a hammock for an hour and a half while the bike charged enough to help me reach the next station.
The battery queue
The second challenge happened in Ho Chi Minh City. Surprisingly, the density of swapping stations there was almost the same as on the highway, but the demand was much higher.
Local motorbike taxi drivers taught me the local etiquette for battery queues: when you arrive at a swapper, the screen shows the charge level of the batteries inside. You select the one closest to 100%, hang your helmet on the battery handle to reserve it, and wait for it to finish charging. According to the drivers, the batteries charge at a rate of about 1% per minute, though it felt slower to me.
I finally reached the city of My Tho after dark, covering a total of 330 km (205 miles) for the day. Considering the mistakes made, this is a good result for a scooter limited to 49 km/h (30 mph). Most importantly, I managed to avoid staying overnight in Ho Chi Minh City, which is too loud and doesn’t fit the vibe of this trip.
May 27 – One Day Before the Start
The Numbers
- Distance driven today: 402 km (250 miles)
- Money spent today: 416,000 VND
- Battery swaps made: 9
- Route: My Tho to Dat Mui Commune (Cape Ca Mau)
- Road quality: 3/5
- Scenery: 4/10
Road Journal
The day started at 6:30 AM leaving My Tho. The first 180 km (110 miles) along highway QL1 were straightforward, passing local shops, houses, and hammock cafés.
To prepare the scooter for the official start photos tomorrow, I stopped for a full wash (30,000 VND). Ironically, less than a kilometer later, the asphalt ended and turned into dusty gravel.
The Kickstand Sensor Breakdown
Around sunset, I stopped to take photos in a scenic spot with dried, cracked earth. While I was setting up, the scooter fell over onto its left side. Fortunately, my 360-camera caught on the selfie stick just 5 cm from the ground, leaving the bike with only a bent brake lever and a scratched mirror.
However, the impact damaged the side-kickstand sensor. On modern scooters, a safety feature prevents the motor from starting if the kickstand is down. For 30 minutes, I tried resetting it, adjusting the wires, and even using a pocket screwdriver to trigger the magnetic sensor, but the bike remained completely unresponsive.
With the nearest town 5 km (3 miles) away, I began pushing the bike. Within minutes, two locals stopped and offered to push me—a common technique in Vietnam where a rider uses their leg to propel another moving bike. They pushed me all the way into town to a small repair shop that specialized in electric scooters (surprisingly). The mechanic managed to disconnect and adjust the sensor, getting the bike running again. He refused to accept any money for the help.
Shortly after leaving to swap my battery, the sensor failed again. I pushed the bike back to the same shop. After the second repair, I asked the mechanic for a strong magnet to keep in my pocket, ensuring I could manually activate the sensor if it failed again on the road.
Riding through a Storm
As I approached the southernmost cape, the streetlights and houses disappeared, replaced by dark mangrove forests. A heavy downpour with lightning started, forcing me to pull under the awning of a roadside building.
The owner, a 65-year-old Vietnamese man, invited me inside. When I told him I was from Russia, he welcomed me warmly, insisting I join his friends for dinner. I used a translation app to talk with them while they shared pork and duck dishes. They strongly insisted I stay the night due to the storm, but because of previous delays on this expedition, I politely declined and continued toward the starting point once the rain slowed down.
The Final Stretch
With the battery running low, I switched to Eco Mode, cruising at a steady 32 km/h (20mph) down empty roads in complete darkness. The landscape was surreal, passing a massive Buddha statue on one side of the road and a Catholic church with illuminated crosses on the other. I arrived in a completely quiet, empty town near the national park. Fortunately, the battery-swapping station was working, allowing me to get a fresh 100% battery.
The hotel owner then messaged me: “My friend, you won’t find the hotel easily, it is not simple.” Following his maps, I turned off the main road onto a narrow concrete path through the mangroves, navigating past barking dogs. The path eventually narrowed into a one-meter-wide concrete bridge with water on both sides and no railings.
I finally reached the property at 11:00 PM.
Tomorrow, the actual expedition begins.
Day 1 – The Official Start
May 28, 2026
| Start: Cape Ca Mau | Finish: Ca Mau City |
|---|---|
| Distance | 135 km (84 mi) |
| Total distance | 135 km (84 mi) |
| Battery swaps | 3 |
| Spend | 529,000 ₫ (~$20.11) |
| Road quality | 3/5 |
| Scenery | 5/10 |
Road Journal
Finding a battery-swapping station just 15 km (9 miles) from Cape Ca Mau was a great surprise. This network is quite new, so having a station at the very end (or beginning) of Vietnam is excellent. It only had one full battery available, which might cause waiting times if more electric travelers come here, but it worked perfectly for me.
Leaving with a full charge allowed me to explore the route fully in daylight. The views are beautiful, with thick mangrove forests growing right next to the road. To see more of the local life, I turned off the main highway onto a quiet coastal side road. I passed through a small village where people live in houses built on stilts directly over the water. The locals were very friendly and waved at me as I rode by.
When the side road ended, I got back onto the main highway. On the way, I stopped by the house of the man who gave me shelter during yesterday’s storm. I bought a lemonade from him to say thank you, and then continued toward Ca Mau City.
The road to the city was good, with smooth asphalt and very few cars. I arrived early and finally got some good sleep. The stilt bungalow from the night before was a great experience, but the loud motorboats at 4:00 AM made it impossible to rest properly!
Day 2: One-Day Loop Around Cà Mau in the Mekong Delta
May 29, 2026
| Start: Ca Mau City | Finish: Ca Mau City (loop) |
|---|---|
| Distance | 181 km (112 mi) |
| Total distance | 316 km (196 mi) |
| Battery swaps | 4 |
| Spend | 465,000 ₫ (~$17.68) |
| Road quality | 4/5 |
| Scenery | 6/10 |
Road Journal
Day 2 of crossing Vietnam south to north on an electric scooter.
Today I tested whether a one-day loop around Ca Mau City (Cà Mau) works as a route — and it does. 181 km, four battery swaps, and the kind of variety that turns a city stopover into a destination.
The loop went west to Thi Tuong Lagoon (Đầm Thị Tường), the largest lagoon in the Mekong Delta, with restaurants directly on the water and the fishing industry visible all around. From there along the coast to the Ship to the North Monument (Tập kết ra Bắc) — a large memorial on an artificial pedestal in the sea, completely empty of tourists. As I was leaving, a local entrepreneur pulled up with homemade electric carts he rents for driving around the area.
Next was Song Doc (Sông Đốc), a coastal town where one of the river’s arms meets the sea. After riding through small streets I came to an active boat repair yard. Strangers welcomed me onto the territory and walked me through what they were doing. Then north past banana plantations, through a rainstorm that cleared just in time to reach Hon Da Bac Islands (Hòn Đá Bạc) — two small islands you can walk to across a concrete causeway above the sea.
Closed the loop through U Minh Ha National Park (U Minh Hạ). Battery availability today was a different story compared to yesterday: stations were spaced well, and I never had to switch to eco mode.
Day 3: Ca Mau to Soc Trang — Khmer Temples and the Bac Lieu Wind Farm
May 30, 2026
| Start: Ca Mau | Finish: Soc Trang |
|---|---|
| Distance | 229 km (142 mi) |
| Total distance | 545 km (339 mi) |
| Battery swaps | 5 |
| Spend | 495,000 ₫ (~$18.82) |
| Road quality | 4/5 |
| Scenery | 6/10 |
Scenery: Mangrove flats, offshore wind turbines standing in the sea (!Cánh đồng điện gió Bạc Liêu), Khmer temples along the road.
Road Journal
Day 3 of crossing Vietnam south to north on an electric scooter. 229 km from 📍Ca Mau to 📍Soc Trang through 📍Bac Lieu.
First stop was 📍Tac Say Church, the pilgrimage site of Father Diệp. Sunday — the parking lot full, locals arriving for the service. Interesting buildings, statue out front. I didn’t go inside.
Heading for the well-known 📍Quan Am Phat Dai statue on the coast, I first ended up at 📍Bac Lieu Artificial Beach — a strange seaside amusement park with a Ferris wheel and a huge concrete head sculpted to look like carved rock. The Quan Am statue itself turned out smaller in person than in photos, but the garden was busy with Sunday crowds.
A small coastal road turned out to be the Khmer temple corridor — this land was part of Khmer (Cambodian) Empoire and the heritage remains. Temple after temple along the route, several with Sunday ceremonies. At 📍Wath Prek Chop the temple guards waved me in to watch — musicians, and a small parade. Foreign tourists are clearly rare here: local women immediately wanted photos.
Continued to the 📍Bac Lieu Wind Farm, Vietnam’s largest offshore wind farm. Concrete roads run straight into the sea with dozens of turbines in shallow water. I wanted to ride between them — the entrance was closed.
Late in the day I reached 📍Mo O beach , where a river arm meets the sea. A concrete pier on pillars stretches across mud and mangroves, almost empty. At the far end: mudflats alive with mudskippers. Locals were sliding across the mud on sleds with headlamps on, likely catching mudskippers (they’re eaten here).
Three days in, still no foreign tourists in sight.
