Vespa Street

A trip to Vespa street to ooh and ahh at the pretty things.

Reconditioned Vespas are available all over town but Ly Thai To street in District 3 seems to be particularly well populated with refurbishing shops. Here's some pretty pictures:

Beer optional. Most of the pictures here were taken at Hoa Vespa .

Bikes I like

Brand new Attila Elizabeths coloured like cheap sweeties.


Why stick to the one theme when there are so many to choose from?


Purists may scoff but I love these old scooters all faffed up for today's modern motorbike driver.


Here scooters are personal.

ANZ

ANZ bank have won a 99 year licence to offer full banking services in Vietnam. Full report here.

Good news for me because I use them already for banking and having more services available is always a good option.

Also good news because they have the best promotion and advertising in the form of Mobile Bankers who use liveried Vespas to visit customers at home to set up accounts and promote the bank's services.



My challenge is to get a picture of the live version.

Hoi An Images

The wet season seems to be coming to a close in Saigon, the wind has changed direction and it no longer rains every day. That's not the case in Hoi An. It bucketed down every day, usually two or three times a day. Umbrellas just didn't cut it so we got some disposable raincoats, the type that make you look as though you're wearing an ill fitting condom. They certainly keep the rain out but it's like wearing your own personal sauna and pretty soon they were sweat wet inside. Not a good situation so we fell back on plan B; when it rains go inside.

Going inside wasn't hard, there were plenty of cafes to shelter in, mostly serving good food.

The photo above was taken in a regular stop off point as we cycled to the beach. The observant amongst you will notice that it's not actually raining in this picture. But it did later.




The beach is a 4km bike ride away and despite the wet weather was lovely to visit. Maybe lovlier because of the wet weather as we had the place to ourselves and even the hawkers stayed away.


Hoi An is very pretty and well worth a trip. Food and shopping are top class and there's lots to see and do.

As always motorbikes are the main form of transport.

Bicycles are much more common than in HCMC


But it's boats of all shapes and sizes that are the most eyecatching transport.