Hanoi by Motorbike: Pillion Tours, Night Food Rides, the Long Bien Bridge, and the Licence Question

Hanoi has around six million motorbikes and the city is built around them: the Old Quarter's lanes, the dyke road along the Red River, the tree-lined French Quarter and the villages across the water are all a motorbike's scale, not a car's. Riding pillion behind a local driver, often a student or a young woman guide, is how you see the city move and how you get to places a walking tour never reaches, in three hours instead of a day. It is also the format that consistently gets the best reviews in the city.

The classic city loop: the Old Quarter's guild streets, the Long Bien bridge (Eiffel's company, 1902, bombed and patched through the American war, still carrying trains and bikes), the banana-plantation island in the river below it, West Lake's Tran Quoc pagoda and the Truc Bach lake where John McCain was pulled from the water, the Ho Chi Minh mausoleum square, and Train Street when it is open. Half-day rides go further, to the Bat Trang ceramic village 15 km east or the Duong Lam ancient village 45 km west.

The evening version is a food tour on wheels: bun cha or pho in the Old Quarter, banh mi from a cart, cha ca, egg coffee, then across the river to Long Bien market or out to a bia hoi corner, six or seven stops in three to four hours for USD 35 to 60 including everything. It covers more ground than a walking food tour and reaches the districts where Hanoians actually eat. The food tours guide compares the two.

Drivers are licensed and insured, helmets are provided and are legally compulsory, and the pace is the traffic's, slow. Wear closed shoes and long trousers. Self-riding is a different question: Vietnamese law requires a licence with a motorcycle category, an international driving permit under the 1968 convention is accepted and most others are not, and travel insurance almost always excludes accidents without a valid licence. The pillion tour removes the problem entirely, which is why we list those and not rentals.

Three hours is the right length; four with food. Book night food rides a day or two ahead in October and November. Solo travellers pay the same as one seat on any tour, since each guest has their own driver. Rain ponchos are provided and tours run in drizzle; they stop only for the storms of July to September. The Old Quarter guide covers the streets you will ride through.