Hanoi is the capital of Vietnam and its most populous city. With a population of over 8 million people, Hanoi is a bustling, crowded and busy metropolis. The city streets buzz with constant activity. While Saigon might remind you of San Diego or any of the small, laidback, coastal Mediterranean cities that you might have visited in the past, Hanoi will only remind you of one other place…New York City. It’s uncanny how much this city feels like the Vietnamese version of New York.
Like New York, you might initially be off put by how crowded and dirty it is, how busy and overwhelming it seems. But, after you settle into your surroundings you’ll begin to notice its distinct, big city charm. You’ll also realize that this is the center of high end culture in Vietnam. If you enjoy fine dining and classy, upscale restaurants and bars, grand perfectly manicured parks, and museums…Hanoi is a place you’ll want to dedicate extra attention to. For us, 3 days was perfect, but like everywhere else in this country, you could easily spend quite a bit more.
We stayed at the Hanoi Marvellous Hotel & Spa. This offered an ideal location within Hanoi’s old city center as well as walking distance to many of Hanoi’s attractions as well as a gorgeous lake and park just blocks away. There’s literally hundreds of nice hotels in the city of Hanoi and I’d hardly be able to tell you after one visit that this is the best hotel in the city, but if you are having trouble narrowing it down, just know that this hotel offers great rooms, excellent service, good food and a great location.
Before we get to all the things you should do while visiting Hanoi, I’d be remiss if I didn’t first mention the highlight of our stay, which was our dinner reservation at Duong’s Restaurant. Chef Hoang Duong has won awards from Top Chef as well as Iron Chef and his restaurant in no way disappoints. Chef Duong personally prepares many of the meals and is regularly walking out of the kitchen and around the restaurant to greet diners and ask how their meal was. The restaurant is tiny, casual and unassuming, but the food is out of this world. If you really want to bring your visit up to the next level they offer daily cooking classes as well.
Best Things to Do in Hanoi
1 – Walk around Hoan Kiem Lake: Remember that gorgeous lake I talked about that’s within walking distance of the Hanoi Marvellous Hotel? Well, this is that lake. The grounds around the lake are stunningly gorgeous, full of flowers and well manicured. The lake itself is absolutely drop dead beautiful, sporting an historic island temple at it’s center (Den Ngoc Son Temple) which is connected to the mainland by an iconic red bridge that is one of the most instagrammable places in Hanoi. Around the circumference of the lake are beautiful, clean and open seating bars with live music, restaurants and shops. This is the ideal spot to walk around and get away from the bustling of the rest of Hanoi. Like Central Park in NYC, the rest of the city seems to disappear when you’re here.
2 – Spend an afternoon walking around and shopping in Hanoi’s historic Old City and French Quarter. Not much to tell you about this, but it’s a unique, old section of the city filled with tiny alleys and little street cafes. You have to walk around it and find your own way on one of your days in town.
3 – Visit the oldest temple in the city of Hanoi: Originally built in the 11th century, Bach Ma Temple, nestled in the heart of Hanoi’s old city center is a gorgeous monument to visit while walking through the city.
4 – Visit the Observation Deck at Lotte Tower for the best views over Hanoi.
5 – Try Egg Coffee at Giang Cafe: This Eggnog like coffee beverage is famous in Hanoi and Giang Cafe has been serving some of the best egg coffees in Vietnam for years.
6 – Walk around the Imperial Citadel of Thang Long: A UNESCO World Heritage site this is a beautiful palace to spend an hour or so walking around.
7 – Try some of Hanoi’s famous Cuisine: Hanoi is known for a delishes fish, tumeric and dill soup dish called Cha Ca Thang Long. Don’t leave Hanoi without trying this. The best place to try this dish? Hanoi’s appropriately named restaurant Cha Ca Thang Long, of course.
8 – Visit Thang Long Water Puppet Theatre: It’s a little weird and something you’ll only do once in your life for good reason, but it’s certainly worth a visit.
9 – Visit Hoa Lo Prison: Better known as the Hanoi Hilton, this iconic prison is now converted Into a museum where you can learn about the life and death of South Vietnamese and Foreign prisoners during the Vietnam War. You may have heard about this prison as the place where John McCain was tortured for years after his plane was shot down.
10 – Take a Food Tour: What better way to experience a culture than eating its food. There are plenty of walking food tours, private food tours and street food vendor tours. If it were up to me we’d probably skip all the museums and pagodas and just do food tours the entire time. Check out these tours below for some great deals.
Hanoi Street Food Walking Tour with a Water Puppet Show
Hanoi Street Food Small Group Walking Tour
Best Day Trips from Hanoi
1 – Halong Bay: As covered in detail in our other post, Hanoi will be your staging location for your trip to Halong Bay. Please check out our post dedicated to Halong Bay for more information.
2 – Cat Ba Island: If you’re in the mood for an island party getaway and want to see Vietnamese people really throw down and have some fun, this is the spot to check out. More party scene than scenic retreat, this resort area right next to Halong Bay has a stunning view from the nearby mountain that you can hike.
3 – Hoa Lu: Check out this tenth century Vietnamese capital that has similar limestone mountains jutting straight up to the sky through endless rice patty fields that make this spot look like Halong Bay without the Bay. It basically looks like a mystical land from a storybook rather than real life.
Check out this 1-day tour and this 2-day tour of this magical area.
