Month: February 2020

Today we have the day to ourselves until our 17:00 meeting with World Expedition’s cycling tour group. Our quest is to see the “Hanoi Hilton” that Senator John McCain was in and to also find some rambutan fruit.

Mission accomplished (including finding a rambutan) Had a good morning exploring (getting lost) in the old quarter of Hanoi. We got pretty good at crossing in traffic too. Fun fact: traffic lights, one way signs, etc are just a suggestion here. The most people we’ve seen on a motor scooter at one time has been 5 so far.

We had our group dinner tonight outside of Hanoi Centre at a family that does cooking classes in Hanoi. The group is mostly from the UK and Australia. At our table was Elena from Canada, plus Graham and Chris from Australia.

Headed to Hanoi today. Excited and tired. The Japanese are so polite. They make you feel like royalty. I’m going to miss that. I’m also going to miss my friend “Pepper”. He gets me.

Looking at the photo below, I know what you are thinking…….I want to party with those two! Actually, we are not real doctors, we only play ones on airplanes…….get me 750 milliliters of “Pinot Grigio” STAT!

Finally arrived in Hanoi. Checked in to our 3 star Skylark Hotel. Fun fact: when you approach a roundabout in your motorscooter, you can go to the right and follow the traffic pattern or turn left and go against the traffic. WTF!

We spent the night walking around the Old Quarter of Hanoi. We had our first taste of Vietnam tonight. I washed it down with a Tiger lager. Last time I had a Tiger beer was in 1979 when I was in Malaysia. Still good.

We initially had a non-stop flight from Newark to Hong Kong and then after spending a day in Hong Kong we were scheduled to fly to Hanoi. Those plans changed 2 days before we were to leave (due to the coronavirus and flights being cancelled because they were not full). We thought we dodged the bullet when we re-booked to a Newark-Tokyo-Hong Kong flight. Then 1 day before leaving our Hong Kong to Hanoi flight was changed and was no longer an option. F#@K!

We then spent a half day re-booking to avoid Hong Kong entirely (I’ll spare you the details). We think we are now set to get to Vietnam (although neither of us actually think we are going to be able to get home as our return flights need to go through Hong Kong!).

After a 14 hour flight we are settled in and looking forward to a 6 hour flight to Hanoi tomorrow.