10 Reasons to visit Hanoi. More information just go to: http://www.hanoivisit.com

1. Hanoi (Vietnamese: Hà Nội), the capital of Vietnam, and also its second largest city, is a
fascinating blend of East and West, combining traditional Sino-Vietnamese motifs with French
flair. It is largely unscathed from the decades of war, and is now going through a building boom,
making it a rapidly developing city in Southeast Asia.
1) The ultimate old quarter
Hang Bac in the Old Quarter. Once the guild street of silversmiths, now home to travel agencies,
tourist cafes and tombstone carvers. The Old Quarter isn’t just a figurative phrase in Hanoi.
A maze of at least 36 streets between Hanoi’s famed Hoan Kiem Lake, the Red River and the
few walls that remain of the Hanoi Citadel, the Old Quarter is more than 1,000 years old and still
going strong.
The oldest surviving neighborhood in Vietnam, the Old Quarter became a market place where
artisans organized themselves into 36 guilds (the guild of silk, silver, bamboo rafts, conical hats,
and sweet potatoes to mention a few), each occupying a street.
The craftsmen have since been overwhelmed by tourism, motor bikes, bars and zippo lighter
touts. But small temples, pagodas and hidden communal guild houses still remain from the era of
the guilds.
More iconic now are the tube houses, skinny and tall by force of a land tax on street frontage.
Check out tube houses at 87 Ma May Street or at 38 Hang Dao.
To spot French colonial townhouses whose lower floors are often disguised by commercial
facades, you just have to look at the roof of the house which is usually preserved in its original
state.
The Vietnamese heart of colonial Hanoi, the Old Quarter is where the anti-French movement
originally headquartered itself.
2) Hoan Kiem Lake

2. The heart of the Old Quarter is Hoan Kiem Lake, which, despite its toxic green colour, offers a
pleasant respite for pedestrians from the frantic game of Frogger that constitutes the rest of the
traffic-heavy area. The 18th-century Ngoc Son Temple, on Jade Island, can be reached via the
beautiful Huc Bridge but another lesser-known haven is Balcony Bar, overlooking the lake from
its first-floor nest of fairy lights on Le Thai To Street.
3) Hoa Lo Prison
The infamous “Hanoi Hilton” – dubbed thus by American prisoners during the Vietnam War –
was constructed by the French in 1896 over the top of Phu Khanh village. Its history is long and
grisly, only selectively recounted (in line with propaganda objectives) in the several rooms that
remain of what was once a much larger site. Cells occupied by life-like shackled mannequins are
particularly evocative; the soundtrack accompanying a guillotine and a grandiose shrine to
“patriotic prisoners” less so. Like the Museum of the Revolution, a full understanding of what
happened here requires additional reading.
4) Street food
Besides the motorbikes, few things define Vietnam like the food. To visit the country without
hunkering down on a footstool for a bowl of “pho ga” (chicken noodle soup) is like visiting Italy
and abstaining from pasta. There are plenty of restaurants aimed at tourists in Hanoi – skip them.
Find a vendor on the footpath and follow three rules. Choose from the food you can see, not from

3. a menu. Offer a fixed amount of money before asking for the price, thereby heading off the
inevitable overcharge. Follow your stomach’s intuition: if in doubt (hygiene-wise), leave it out.
5) So French, but not
Joie de vivre translates well in Vietnam. Whilst people from Hanoi are considered aloof by
southern Vietnamese, they have nothing on Parisians.
The Vietnamese have not forsaken their French colonial heritage and it is a great place to enjoy
French aesthetics with Asian hospitality.
Many wonderful French buildings remain, mostly functional and not a few sporting a fashionable
bohemian decay.
However, the success of French-Vietnamese fusion is best experienced through Hanoi’s food.
French baguettes are stuffed with Vietnamese pâté and pickled vegetables to create the rich and
tangy banh mi sandwiches.
Coffee is an obsession passed on by the French. In Hanoi, your espresso drips through a small
aluminum filter into sweet condensed milk.
Cafés are still arranged in the French style, as if the street is a theater and the café is the audience
section. But diners are usually perched on humble plastic or rattan chairs that are mere inches
from the ground.
6) Very fresh beer
Bia hoi, Hanoi’s “morning brew,” enjoyed all day. Hanoi is famous for it’s dirt-cheap,
unpasteurized beer made fresh daily — bia hoi.
The official Hanoi bia hoi comes fresh daily from the Habeco factory. It ferments throughout the
day, consequently tasting different at each vendor.
The flavor depends on the rate at which the beer is being sold and how much the seller has
decided to water it down that day.

4. By day’s end, unsold beer goes off and is thrown away. But there’s rarely any left each evening.
The ridiculously cheap price and the fact that it is served out of plastic cups makes this the
perfect anti-yuppie, anti-elitist brew, suited to the ideals of a socialist country.
Find it on every happening Hanoi corner, sometimes paired with food, other times with a
television and karaoke machine offering classic tunes by Abba and Boney M.
The most famous Bia Hoi for travelers are right in the heart of the old quarter on Bia Hoi Corner
at the intersection of Luong Ngoc Quyen and Ta Hien streets.
7) Night markets
Just when you think the Old Quarter couldn’t possibly hold any more stuff, it surrenders Hang
Giay and Hang Dao streets to a seemingly infinite line of illuminated orange stalls every Friday
and Saturday night. Much of the material on sale is an extension of the surrounding shops but the
festive atmosphere is infectious. Think wallets, Buddhas, plush buttons and wall lights shaped
like teapots. You can even find greetings cards with a pop-up Sydney Opera House.
8) People are friendlier
It’s a rare night you’ll spend with friends clusteredround the low-slung plastic stools of a bia hoi
where some blinking, red-facedbloke won’t lurch up to your table to repeatedly grasp your hand

5. and yell,”Helloo! Hello! Helloh?” then invite you to join his mates for somerounds of cheap,
rice-based spirits.
9) Pop war
The Vietnam War — most iconic war? The Vietnam War is remembered as much for the
atrocities that occurred as it is for the anti-war demonstrations abroad.
A pilgrimage to Hanoi is part of the catharsis sought by veterans of the Vietnam War.
Others who grew up hearing cool protest songs by Bob Dylan and The Rolling Stones, remain
fascinated by a war that is associated with the rebellious 1960s and 1970s.
It is a war that influenced a decade of youth culture in the U.S. and continues to inform pop
culture around the world.
For scars of U.S. bombings of Hanoi check out the Long Bien Bridge which crosses the Red
River and transported supplies from the port at Hai Phong. Or visit the Hoa Lo prison, dubbed
the “Hanoi Hilton” by American GIs.
10) Street life
Usually these beer barns are open-walled and tables and chairs often spill onto the street. You
may get a lungful of motorbike exhaust with your fried spinach, but you get a nice view as well.
Others back onto lakes or parks, or the Mausoleum.