My 3 month Vietnam tourist visa is expiring next week, so need to do Visa run. Last time, I did it on Motorbike. The day before visa run I rode motorbike from Vung tau to Saigon, stayed in Hotel. Then next morning headed to Moc Bai (remember going past the famous area where Củ Chi tunnels are). Got to border around 1pm. On hindsight, I should have left Saigon earlier in the morning, but had to do some errands so it was about 10am when i got out of Saigon.
Getting there was a piece of cake (because I had stayed overnight in Saigon), however, coming back was no walk in the park. I got caught up in the rush hour traffic in Saigon. It seemed to take forever going through D1 in Saigon to get to road that leads to Vung Tau.
As I was following google maps without enabling the 'avoid highways' feature, I managed to get on to a highway where no motorbikes are allowed. There were huge trucks whizzing past sounding the horn. At first i thought they were just pleased to see me. But it soon dawned on me. I got off at the next exit pronto. I was pretty lucky, because there were no petrol stations on the highway for miles, and I was running out of fuel. So word of warning, when you do this trip and you are on a bike (or a car for that matter), make sure you are fueled-up, in case you do end up on a highway unknowingly. Anyway, when I got back to Vung Tau it was about 8:30pm, after many stops along the way for resting.
For upcoming visa run (return journey), I've checked-out google maps and found a route avoiding Saigon (at least I think it does) and more importantly without going on highway:
https://tinyurl.com/y7uhldyq
Seems I'll be taking QL22, then QL1A through An Phu Dong, past Khu Du Lich Van Hoa Suoi Tien Theme Park, then on to QL51 at Long Binh Tan. Has anyone taken this route? What's the road condition like?
Would be grateful for any tips and comments.