Just arrived at our hotel-Sofitel metropole. Beautiful French colonial, gorgeous rooms. Flights not too bad only slept 4-5 hours. Think we had ~20 hours of flying time between both flights. Met our guide-Du (zhu) fairly easy to understand and driver thoc (tok) doesn't speak english. Hanoi airport works much better than New York metropolitan airports (slightly less traffic) bags were almost waiting for us once we got through immigration. Immigration officers don't smile at you , very serious in uniform. Airport definitely less glitzy than Narita looks institutional . Big crowd waiting outside with flowers guess flying here is a special event for the locals. Trip from airport to hotel -4 lane highway- slow drivers who seem somewhat lost. Almost no lights on in city (10:30 pm) . They have these neon designs along way sort of arty ( not commercial).
