This whole city is moving on motorbikes – there are more of them than people (and that’s 11M normally but apparently only 1M for Tet holiday. Wild and crazy for me anyway, so why not go all in and experience it first hand. We were going to be the passengers, sitting behind the locals on the motorbike and do a Hanoi tour for 5 hours. It was way better than I expected.

Noah and Liam (my nephews) and Petr and I were the only ones volunteering for this which was probably the right call. We lost some interest from the rest after spending a few days in the city, witnessing the motorbike chaos. Finn, our girl-guide, and 3 of her male colleagues gave us helmets, showed us how to hold on sitting behind them and off we were. For about 5 minutes I was convinced that I am going to fall off by pretty much every traffic light stop. After a first sightseeing stop, it was becoming clear that getting off and getting on is not going to be a swan lake either, more of a walrus lake.

First stop, opera – picture pose. Second stop, live animal and fresh produce markets where locals shop. A brief thought of “is this where the next covid virus comes from” did enter my mind – but again, getting on the bike without the entire market having a laughing fit overshadowed my concern. We saw some of the apartments that the communist regime used to give to people to live in which honestly were horrendously looking – but were also almost 60 years old.

We then were going to go and visit a local family and see their apartment. I was a little apprehensive to just enter someone’s house during a holiday – we walked into an apartment of an old man who lives there with 6 other family members and sat down. He told us his story of a North Vietnam war veteran and served us some spam meat. Had to take some to be polite b/c I truly appreciated him hosting us – but it was truly inedible (we all managed to hide it pockets or bags) and then we were off. Next stop, with already aching back, the Ho Chi Min mausoleum – yes, it looks just like the Lenin one in Moscow. Our guide gave us a good propaganda story on how the country is democratic and happy and Uncle Ho is basically a god – while the state police was circulating around us suspiciously. Definition of irony. Ah, and she also mentioned that most people can’t leave the country but who would want to. And if you marry a foreigner you can’t come back – or something of that sorts – well, uncle Ho definitely got it covered. To top it, we got a good John McCain story of how the brave people of North Vietnam captured him, beat him and imprisoned him in Hilton Hanoi. Given we were out nowhere and were seriously dependent on the crew to get us back, I didn’t go anywhere with it.

By the way – you think roads and traffic – that I could handle. But the alleys where both of the side mirrors were touching the wall, no signs, no visibility – total insanity.

All the sudden we were out of town and on a banana plantation, not kidding. Like literally a suburb of Hanoi. To top this – can you really – because at this point we were happy to be alive and me personally far ahead of my own expectations given I had all fingers, feet and my back was still intact – we drove on a fully functioning bridge (built by Eiffel) that had full in traffic of motorbikes and train in the middle – for a photo opportunity. Do I we really need this level of adrenaline? I refused to climb to the train tracks – since I could foresee about 20 different ways to get stuck or ran over – trains, bikes and automobiles, anyone? But Petr and the boys jumped on it, eagerly awaiting a training. I gladly passed on the opportunity to be the stupid tourist vignette on local news.

Lunch was in a local, sustainable restaurant where we got to taste our guide’s homemade special holiday Vietnamese cake – already feeling bad for spitting out the spam – I dove in but didn’t get far. Not bad, but so so heavy, rice glued together with lard and some unrecognizable meat. Tough to digest but I tried it – actually thinking it will be a cake. Well, lesson learned.

Vote for Hanoi tour on motorbike – definitely – unique, safe (ish), gets you out of the tourist places and you get to meet some locals.