A Note From Thuận
What Is Lacquer Road?
Lacquer Road is my journal. Long before it was a company, it was the notebook I kept after every ride — the one place I put down what a day on the road actually gave me, and the people I rode it with.
Most of these days I was leading the ride myself. My clients become fellow adventurers for a week or two, and I want them, and anyone reading afterward, to have every bit of it: the culture, the small exchanges with the people we meet, and all the nuts and bolts of the places we pass through.
How It’s Written
Written the Same Evening
Every entry is written the evening I get back, while the day is still fresh. Some of it I’ve already half-written in my head — the sentences form while I’m pedalling in silence through the wilderness, long before I reach a keyboard. I type it all up on a 2016 MacBook that has followed me across every one of these roads.
I do use artificial intelligence here, but only as a grammar editor, never as a copywriter. Writing well in English is a craft I’m still learning, and I’d rather lean on a tool for the grammar than hand it the feeling. So rest assured: what you read is what one guide, and his courageous guests, are actually experiencing out there.
On Being a Guide
Nature Doesn’t Need a Translator. People Do.
I believe that nature, caught in the right place at the right time, doesn’t need much interpreting. A rice terrace at first light, a pass breaking out of the cloud — that beauty speaks for itself.
People are different. The families and vendors we meet along the way don’t speak, or think, in the same language or logic that visitors bring with them. That takes a guide who has actually trained for it. I take pride in being a cultural ambassador for the local people I meet — not just translating their words, but the meaning behind them.
Make These Pages Real
If a story here moves you, come ride it. Our tours are curated by me: most of them I’ve built, tested and lead myself. The rest I know well enough to vouch for, and I stay close to them for risk management, so the safety and the meaning both hold up. You can also request a private trip, with me leading it directly.