Meet Tien and Yen, two lovely staff of Grasshopper Adventures Hoi An, who have just completed their first solo cycling trip in a spectacular way…

On the occasion of Vietnam’s traditional lunar new year, the girls decided to visit their home town on a bike trip. Tien, an operations staff member, rode 120km from Hoi An to her hometown Hue, conquering the Hai Van Pass along the way. Meanwhile, Yen, one of our tour guides, traveled over 100km from Hoi An to Tam Ky along the coastline.

If you were to tell any Vietnamese person about these cycling journeys, they would surely ask “are they insane?”. This feat is shocking to them for two reasons.

In a country where the majority of people travel by motorbike, you’d be hard pressed to find someone on a bicycle - and riding over a hundred kilometers at that!

Also, according to a WHO report, over one-third of Vietnam’s population doesn’t get sufficient exercise weekly, and typical Vietnamese girls prefer to stay in and preserve light skin rather than cycling under the sun.

But our girls are far from typical. Tien said before joining Grasshopper Adventures, she barely exercised and rode a motorbike to work. Now, she proudly owns a bicycle and rides it to work every day. Going on bicycle trips with guests inspired Yen to cycle daily and now she thoroughly enjoys it.

If you visit the Grasshopper Adventures Vietnam office, you won’t find high heels but sneakers, you won’t see skirts but sportswear. The whole team is passionate about staying active and doing sports together like cycling or running after work. Guides and technical staff often cycle to work every day and love it so much that leading a trip with guests feels more like a fun outing with friends rather than work.

This is the contagious Grasshopper Adventures’ spirit that we want to spread to everyone. On tours, we encourage our guests when they need it most, cheering them on as they pedal farther than they thought they could. This spirit even spreads to our staff and their friends and family so they enjoy cycling as much as we do and stay active.

“Healthy life, healthy mind” as Thang, our Product Leader always says. Give it a shot, climb on a bicycle and pedal around the old town of Hoi An or through the canal ways of the Mekong Delta. Immerse yourself in your surroundings and you just might find yourself falling in love with cycling as we have.