Why come here
Hanoi is not a city you tick off. The reason to come is texture: an entire street selling nothing but bamboo ladders, a temple wedged between two shophouses, a coffee bar on the fourth floor of a building with no sign. None of it appears on a highlights list and all of it is the point.
Three days is the minimum: one for the Old Quarter and the lakes, one for the museums and the west of the city, and one for the villages on the edge — which is where most travellers say the trip actually started.
What to do
- The Old Quarter's thirty-six guild streets, best walked early or after dark
- Hoan Kiem Lake at 6am, when half the neighbourhood is exercising on it
- The Temple of Literature, Vietnam's first university, founded in 1070
- The Ho Chi Minh mausoleum complex, the One Pillar Pagoda and the Presidential Palace grounds
- Tran Quoc pagoda on West Lake, the oldest in the city
- Street food by district: bun cha in the south, cha ca on its own named street, egg coffee everywhere
- The village outskirts — Dong Ngac's communal house, Lien Mac's flower fields, the tofu households
When to go
October and November are the best weeks of the year: dry, clear and around 25°C. December to February is cold, grey and drizzly but atmospheric. May to August is hot and humid with heavy afternoon rain. Tet, the lunar new year, empties the city for a week — beautiful, but half of everything is shut.
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