Had an excellent Motorbike tour of Hanoi. I arranged it with a company called Paloma Tours. They sent Trang to pick me up at 8:00am and we promptly went for coffee. Wasn’t sure I’d be all that comfortable on the back of a scooter with a youngster driving me around, but she turned out to be a good driver, and spoke English well. We went to many of the better known Hanoi sites, including the Temple of Literature (Confucian temple), the Long Bien bridge, the railroad street, a B52 crash site, and then to the main market for lunch. Great way to see things, and her local knowledge made it stress free. By the time we finished lunch, I’d had enough, so sent her on her way, but it was a lot of fun. Went in search of good wifi to download pictures and ended up in Cafe called La Place. Two very elegantly dressed girls made space for me. I thought they were American tourists, but they ended up being locals who spoke very good English. One had spent time in San Jose, CA. I suspect they were from very well to do families, since they both had Vespas, a status item here. Temperatures have been very comfortable light jacket weather. Interesting feature on the Honda scooter we rode: Start stop technology. See the photo, but the scooter basically shuts down when waiting at a light and then starts instantly when you are ready to go.
Vietnam 