Comments on: Letter From Hanoi

By: Art Knight

Art Knight — Fri, 30 Jun 2017 09:46:24 +0000

Yes, there is crap at Target, but if you look you can find good stuff. I was one of the top cashiers at Super Target for signing people up for the Red Card. I won a lot of nice documentaries from “the clearance bin.” They tried to give me Hollywood crap like Despicable Me or Avengers. I took Ghost Towns (America’s Lost World,)Eagle Against the Sun (WW2,) Birth of Flight (The History of Civil Aviation,) The Prize (the epic quest for oil, money and power,) Warbirds Over The Trenches (follow WW1’s flying aces to victory!)I did take one Hollywood DVD…The Clint Eastwood Collection (A Fistful of Dollars, For A Few Dollars More, The Good The Bad and The Ugly and Hang ‘Em High.) The bonus features do not include him speaking to a chair.

By: Art Knight

Art Knight — Fri, 30 Jun 2017 06:58:07 +0000

The Chicken Cycle is my favorite photo. On my Suzy Suzuki, I have two huge saddlebags that can easily swallow gallons of milk and a rack that carries a 30 pack of Pabst Blue Ribbon cans. My neighbor finds it funny that I go grocery shopping on my motorcycle. But those chickens are hilarious. They just look so resigned. They seem to be thinking, yep, we’re crammed together on a motorcycle heading to our be-heading.

Anyone who believes in Global Warming should buy a motorcycle. I get over 40 miles to a gallon. I guarantee that my “carbon foot-print” is smaller than Al Gore’s. Mission Motorcycles made an electric motorcycle, but they went out of business.

By: Visiter les villes du guilde Monocle avec vos points Marriott Rewards ou Starwood Preferred Guest - milesopedia

Tue, 28 Mar 2017 02:00:50 +0000

[…] scène de rue dans Hanoi, photo : Patrick Smith […]

By: Jim

Jim — Tue, 09 Dec 2014 15:27:51 +0000

Dear Patrick:

Thanks for an always-interesting and informative blog!

My personal “most amazing” sights in either Hanoi or Ho Chi Minh are the power lines. I have never seen such huge jumbles of cables with no apparent design or organization, with cables coming and going in every direction, often sagging perilously close to the walkways and children playing below. In any other country, such a mess would be a safety violation of the highest order, but in Vietnam it is simply normal electrical wiring.

Re: scooters and children: I have on far too many occasions seen entire families of 5 and 6 bodies crammed on a single scooter. Again, this is transportation as usual in Vietnam.

Like yourself, I travel for my work, and I have been making business in more than 59 countries over the past 35+ years. Vietnam is a favorite, for the lovely hospitality, beautiful culture, and amazing food.

All the best,

Jim Shannon
St. Paul, MN.

By: atpcliff

atpcliff — Thu, 04 Dec 2014 05:35:35 +0000

Hi PS!

Jakarta traffic is amazing. Massive jams at 0330, in more than one location in the city. I think it would be worth spending a couple of days there on the way to Bali.

Hanoi sounds awesome! I’ve heard that Saigon is even better.

My friend used to fly MD-11 cargo for EVA. They are shutting down the fleet, and they were let go. They asked to transfer to the passenger side, but they were expat, and EVA would not let them transfer.

I have never flown EVA, but I flew on UAL from Taiwan to Tokyo. ALL of the cabin crew were Taiwanese…their service was great, like most foreign service…MUCH better than DAL/AA/UAL. They were all younger women.

The only foreign carrier I have flown on that I didn’t like the service was Cathay…it is much more similar service to DAL/AA/UAL than to any of the other foreign carriers I have experienced.

By: Ian

Ian — Sun, 30 Nov 2014 01:31:56 +0000

It wasn’t the motorbikes in the street that that gave me pause in Hanoi, it was the ones that forsook the street and sped along the sidewalks instead, narrowly missing those on foot. How I resisted the temptation to “clothesline” one or more of them I will never know. Accidents do happen, we came across a couple of crashed bikes and a partially covered bloody body just outside of the city.

By: Wandering Justin

Wandering Justin — Mon, 17 Nov 2014 16:50:10 +0000

I absolutely love Hanoi, side trip to Halong Bay or not. The Old Quarter is such a maelstrom. And then you can walk east, and you’re suddenly in this neat, clean area with wide streets and sidewalks.

I learned how to cross the street on my first day in Ho Chi Minh City … just walk, don’t look around, stay steady. Didn’t have a problem. I think someone needs to invent a motorbike Bingo for all the amazing stuff you’ll see people hauling. I spotted two guys cruising Hanoi with a headless animatronic Santa. (I was lucky enough to get a photo.)

By: Msconduct

Msconduct — Thu, 13 Nov 2014 00:45:10 +0000

As a counterbalance to the people who’ve seen crazy traffic but no accidents, I can report that in my six weeks in China I saw numerous accidents, mostly car vs bicycle, with the cyclist inevitably coming off pretty badly.

By: RenaissanceLady

RenaissanceLady — Wed, 12 Nov 2014 19:01:28 +0000

A wonderful account and beautiful photos. I envy you being able to make such a trip.

By: Andrew

Andrew — Wed, 12 Nov 2014 02:52:02 +0000

Brings me back to my visit to Hanoi. Most important piece of advice I got when I arrived was to just walk at a constant speed and fixed direction and let the bikes avoid you; to do otherwise will inevitably lead to a collision. Somewhere I have a great video I took as I walked across the river of motorbikes and indeed they eddied around me as if I were a moving rock in the flow.