There's a lad sat on a wall at the Yen Minh checkpoint right now with no bike, no plan and a 2024 blog post open on his phone. The blog said nobody checks the permit. It was right, in 2024. Since June this year they check it, and if you haven't got one they fine you and keep the bike until you've sorted it. He'd also been told an English licence "sort of works" in Vietnam. It doesn't, and the next checkpoint takes another 1 to 2 million dong off him for that, plus his travel insurance is now worthless if he comes off on the pass. Vietnam is the same country it was two years ago. The rules are not. That's the whole reason this kit exists. Get the kit for £12.99 What actually changed in 2026 (and what the old blogs get wrong) The Ha Giang Loop needs a border permit again. Around 260,000 dong, sorted in Ha Giang City the day before you ride, and the checkpoints at Bac Sum and Yen Minh are checking properly. The kit tells you exactly where to get it, what to bring, and the one question to make a tour company answer in writing before you pay them. Motorbike licence checks are real now. The loop and the Hai Van Pass both have police stops. You need a proper motorbike licence and a 1968 International Driving Permit, not the 1949 one the Post Office hands out by default. The kit tells you which one to ask for, what the fine is, and what happens to your insurance if you skip it. Hanoi restricted petrol motorbikes on 11 Old Quarter streets at weekends and Friday evenings from 1 July. Grab bike doesn't work the way every guide says it does. The kit gives you the walking, metro and Xanh SM workarounds so you're not stood on Hang Bac at 8pm on a Saturday wondering why nobody's accepting your ride. Visas got easier and the paperwork got stranger. UK passports get 45 days free through 2028, everyone else gets a 90-day multiple-entry e-visa for $25, but there's now a mandatory Digital Arrival Card with a 72-hour window that half the guides written this spring don't mention, and a health declaration that may or may not be switched on the week you fly. Both are in here, with the timing. Long Thanh airport opened this summer. Two airports now serve Saigon. If you book the transfer to the wrong one, you'll find out at 11pm. What's in the kit The Route Planner. Three honest routes, 2 weeks, 3 weeks and 4 weeks, day by day, with the leg-by-leg call on whether you fly, take the train or take the sleeper bus, and why. Not "you could do this or that". The actual route, with the days you skip and the days you don't. The Transport Decision Sheet. Every big leg (Hanoi to Ha Giang, Hanoi to Hue, Hue over the Hai Van, Da Nang to Saigon, Saigon to the Delta and ten more) with the answer, the reason, the rough cost and the time. Plus the hotel-night maths that shows why the bus is often the expensive option. Sleeper Bus Survival. Which company, which bus, which bunk, what to eat and not eat before you board, what goes underneath and what stays on your body, and the two routes you should never do overnight. The Scam List, 2026 edition. Thirteen of them, written as what they look like while they're happening to you: the meter trick at Noi Bai, the two blue notes, the coconut man, the shoe repair, the rental scratch that was already there, the e-visa site that charges triple. Not a list of names. The shape of each one, and the two words that end it. The Ha Giang Permit and Licence Checklist. A tick-page for before you leave home, the day before the bus, the afternoon you arrive, and every morning on the loop. Print it. Don't be the lad on the wall. Money, SIMs and cash. Which ATMs to use and which to walk past, why you carry more cash into the mountains than feels sensible, and the one network that actually has signal on the loop. The 72-hour pre-flight checklist. Arrival card, health declaration, passport validity, onward ticket, hotel car. The list you run through at the airport at home. Free updates for life. The rules moved once this year and they'll move again. Buy once, get every updated edition emailed to you, no extra charge, forever. The changelog is on the last page so you can see what's new. Download instantly, £12.99 Who this is for First-timers planning 2 to 4 weeks in Vietnam who'd rather spend the planning hours on where to eat than on working out which of 40 blog posts is still true. If you've done Vietnam four times and ride the loop for fun, you don't need this. Who wrote it I'm not going to tell you I've done 40 trips and married into a Hanoi family. I did the trip properly, I got the sleeper bus wrong the first time, I did the centre of the country in the wrong order and burnt three days, and I kept the notes. Then I rebuilt the whole thing for the 2026 rules, checked every claim against what operators and hostels in Ha Giang, Hanoi and Saigon have been reporting this summer, and turned it into the kit I wish I'd had at Noi Bai with my bag on my knee. What it isn't It's not a photo book and it's not a list of "hidden gems". It's the practical layer under your trip: rules, routes, transport and money. The gems you'll find yourself once you're not stuck at a checkpoint. Digital PDF, 52 pages, reads on a phone. Instant download. Free updates for life. Get the 2026 kit
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