May 14, 2026 — Stage: 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 Lite 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) at today’s exchange rate
- Batteries: Not included — purchased or rented separately
- Battery deposit: ₫500,000 ( ~$19 / ~€16) per battery
- Monthly 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.
What’s Left Before I Go
Here’s the mildly surprising part: even a license-free 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.
So right now I’m in a waiting game. The second the dealership calls to say the plate is ready, I head to the start point and this thing actually begins.
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 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. 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
- Money spent today: 401,000 VND
- Route: Mui Ne to My Tho
- Road quality: 5/5
Road Journal
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 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 for the day. Considering the mistakes made, this is a good result for a scooter limited to 49 km/h. 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 Official Start
The Numbers
- Distance driven today: 402 km
- 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 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 away, I began pushing the bike by hand. 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 toy cars. 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 bypass 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 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 automated battery-swapping station was working, allowing me to get a fresh 100% battery and recharge my dying phone.
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.
