Product Description
Explore the heart of Hanoi’s rich history and culture with our thrilling Vespa Adventures Hanoi itinerary. From vintage flea markets to historic bridges and hidden gems, embark on a unique journey through the city’s soul. Book now for an unforgettable Vespa adventure!
Itinerary
8:30 AM: Your Vespa adventure begins as our experienced riders pick you up from your hotel and transfer you to the meeting point – Hanoi Cathedral. Here, you’ll join the main group and meet your tour guide for safety instructions and an overview of the itinerary.
8:45 AM: Start your Vespa journey by driving through the city center, heading to the flea market and the Nguyen Cong Tru old apartment building area. This area serves as a living museum of the real Hanoi, transporting you back to the Hanoi subsidy period of over 40-50 years ago. Take a walk around the flea market, where you’ll find hundreds of stores selling mechanical accessories. During the subsidy period, the government distributed almost all kinds of products, but sometimes the supply fell short. The flea market emerged to fulfill these needs.
9:30 AM: Continue your adventure by heading to the historical Long Bien Bridge, built by the French company Daydé & Pillé in 1898. Enjoy an overview of the Red River before exploring our green banana island with a 1.5 km walk. Here, you can engage in farming activities, visit a floating village, explore an outdoor gym, and relax on the river beach. You’ll also have the unique opportunity to interact with an 86-year-old elderly couple living in a tiny floating house, offering insight into the rich-poor divide in Hanoi.
10:30 AM: Ride along the world Guinness record mosaic wall, pass by the romantic West Lake, and navigate the zigzag alleys of Ngọc Ha village. Stop to visit sites related to the December 1972 bombing of Hanoi, including the B52 lake, where you can see the wreckage of a US aircraft.
11:00 AM: Experience the famous Hanoi train street, where you can witness local life unfolding beside the train tracks. Due to recent safety measures by the local government, some parts of the train street may be temporarily closed, but your guide will ensure you have a safe opportunity to observe the passing train. Enjoy a drink while waiting for the train to pass through the narrow alley.
11:45 AM: Conclude your adventure by sitting down at a truly local Vietnamese restaurant, where you’ll savor the essence of Vietnamese cuisine during a cozy lunch before returning to your hotel.
12:15 PM: End of the tour.
Itinerary disclaimer
Occasionally our tour itineraries are updated during the year to incorporate improvements stemming from past travelers’ comments and our own research. The information given in this itinerary may be slightly different to that in the service proposal. It’s very important that you print and review a final copy of your itinerary a couple of days prior to travel, in case there have been changes that affect your plans. If you have any queries, please contact us. We are here to help you!
Please note that while we operate successful trips in Vietnam throughout the year, some changes may occur in our itineraries due to inclement weather and common seasonal changes to timetables and transport routes. This can happen with little notice so please be prepared for modifications to the route. The order and timing of included activities in each location may also vary from time to time.
Inclusions
Depending on the proposed option (semi-guide tour or all-inclusive package tour), the price may include the following services. Please bear in mind Lotussia Travel is specialized in tailor-made trips. Trip cost vary depending on group size and other details.
- Car transfers.
- Local tour guide. The English-Speaking guide is provided by default. Other language may be available upon request (with extra charge).
- Meals.
- Entrance fees.
Exclusions
Unless required most of the following services are usually not included in our tour price.
- Visa
- Flight/Train tickets.
- Accommodation.
- Tour leader.
- Local porter(s).
- International travel insurance.
- Drinks.
- Tips.
- Personal expenses.
Tour guide
Our tour guides speak English or French. They hold a university degree in tourism and national license as a guide. If you wish to send a tour leader along with any group, he or she can fully rely on the knowledge and experience of our local guides.
Remote treks are always accompanied by a local representative to deal with permits and authorities and manage the porter team. They speak the local dialects, know the cultural traditions and give tips on suggested behavior in fragile ecological areas and tribal communities. For some itineraries, the role of tour leader and representative is combined.
Driver
Our drivers don’t speak English. It’s possible that a few of them might know some basic words, such as telling time, stop, and lunch. If you’re looking for effective communication throughout the journey, we highly recommend booking a tour guide.
Trip routes
Principally, Lotussia Travel requires all the trip associates to know the destinations well by any means of traveling or enquiry to the local suppliers to figure out all the relative details of any trip. For adventure tours such as jungle trekking, mountain hiking, sea kayaking, river rafting or biking, cycling tours, Lotussia Travel will never add any new routes into available schedule until survey or pre-view it.
Accommodation
Lotussia Travel carefully choose all the hotels, guest-houses or home-stays based on service quality, location, and characteristics, doing best to make the accommodations in the remote small places as comfortable as possible. Please bear in mind that hotels in Vietnam might not be in the same standard in other country. Generally hotels in major cities such as Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh city, Hoian, Hue…are much better than hotels and guest-houses in mountainous areas.
Meals
Lotussia Travel take dinning as an indispensable experience to clients since it is an important part in Vietnamese culture. Therefore, Lotussia Travel will not intend take clients to the most expensive restaurants but non-touristy local ones which offer delicious, local food, with nice or interesting atmosphere. The restaurants might be simple in the country but LOTUSSIA Travel guarantee is sanitary and cleanliness. Or even on our trek, we encourage our cook offer client food with new tastes from day to day. During adventure itineraries to mountainous or remote areas, there is sometimes no choice for hotel and restaurants. We will try our best to bring you the best taste of local food.
Drinks
As the tap water in Vietnam is undrinkable, Lotussia Travel recommend clients to drink bottled water throughout your trip, or boiled water on treks. Lotussia Travel offers bottle water all the day, and soft drinks like Cola, Sprite or Vietnamese Tea or if possible juice in restaurants (if mentionned in itinerary). This is not automatically included in the packages. In simple restaurant or on camping, Lotussia Travel offers boiled water, instant coffee or juice, wrapped milk (Details are confirmed in bottom of your itinerary).
Transportation
In most destinations of Vietnam, all the roads are well paved though the traffic is quite messed up like in Hanoi, Hai Phong… We use proper vehicles, car, minibus or coach in good condition based on the size of the groups. We use 4WD only on the rough road where the other vehicles could not pass through or based on clients requirement on overland journeys or treks. For cycling itineraries, we usually use our support minibus or minibus with support truck. For sea kayaking, river rafting trips, diving packages we use standard boat as support. Detailed information is provided on our service proposal.
We use drivers who are native or local of each travel destination and maintain good safety records for all trips. Most of our drivers can speak English but a little bit. This is just enough to understand basic words such as “time of departure”, “stop”, “restaurants”, “hotels”…If you want to learn more about Vietnamese culture and information about sightseeing sites, booking a tour guide is highly recommended.
