Hanoi: Vespa Food & Culture Tour with Train Street & Long Bien Bridge

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What’s the experience like?

We swung onto the back of these old Army Vespas just outside our hotel in Hanoi—helmets on, nerves buzzing a bit. Our driver, Minh, grinned and told us to hold tight (I did). Within minutes we were weaving through alleys so narrow I could brush the walls if I wanted. There was this smell—grilled pork from somewhere nearby—mixed with incense drifting out of a tiny temple wedged between houses. Kids zipped past on bicycles, one shouted “hello!” and then vanished around a corner. It felt like being inside someone else’s daily routine for a while.

Minh kept pointing out things I’d never have noticed: a woman slicing green papaya at the market, an old man playing chess under a banyan tree. We zipped past the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum (it’s bigger than I expected), then down wide French boulevards where the trees almost touch overhead. The main keyword here is Hanoi Vespa tour—because honestly, you see the city differently when you’re clinging to the back of one of these things. At some point I lost track of which lake was which; there are so many. But West Lake shimmered in the late afternoon light and it felt like time slowed down for half a minute.

The highlight for me? Probably Train Street. We stopped at this little café right by the tracks—egg coffee in hand—and waited for the train to come barreling through. Everyone got quiet for a second before it roared past so close you could feel it in your chest (I spilled some coffee but nobody cared). Then laughter and chatter again as locals waved from balconies above. After that we crossed Long Bien Bridge—the metal rattled under our wheels—and watched farmers working on tiny plots along the Red River below. Minh told us his grandfather used to walk that bridge every day during the war.

Food-wise, I still think about those fried spring rolls and that weirdly good rice wine shot (burns going down but makes you smile after). The Hidden Gem Café had these five-colored noodles that looked too pretty to eat but yeah, we ate them anyway. By the end my hair smelled like exhaust and lemongrass, which is sort of perfect for Hanoi, you know?