24 hours in Hanoi, Vietnam

Day 3 – Hanoi

We pulled into Hanoi’s train station at 05:40 am and grabbed a ‘Grab’ cab to take us to our hotel in the Old quarter. Thank goodness, our hotel was able to offer us an early check in at less than £20 and so by 6.15 am we were back in an actual bed, and had a couple of hours sleep!

After breakfast we made our way to the nearby heritage house, a tradional Vietnamese merchants house. The wooden house had a couple of courtyards inside and steep steps that were designed to stop the flow of bad energy.

From here we took a cab to the UNESCO imperial citadel site. Added to Unesco’s World Heritage List in 2010, Hanoi’s Imperial Citadel was the hub of Vietnamese military power for over 1000 years. There are also fascinating military command bunkers from the American War – complete with maps and 1960s communications equipment – used by the legendary Vietnamese general Vo Nguyen Giap.

From here we made our way back to the old quarter and had a wander through the old streets- stopping for a ‘pho break’ for lunch which was delicious.

We visited the old East gate which is the only surviving medieval city gate (there used to be 16) and also the only surviving Nguyen dynasty gate too (unesco) north gate.

We had a couple of beer stops before making our way to the Crossing Vietnam office where we joined the 4pm street food tour which we’d pre booked on viator.

There were 8 of us in total and we were guided on foot by Chloe who was excellent. We made 3 stops to enjoy 4 savoury dishes, all in places that we would never have found without the tour. We tried bbq banh mi, cold noodles, spring rolls, and more spring rolls which we made.

We made our way to train street which was a particular highlight as whilst we enjoyed a beer, not 1 but 2 trains passed mere millimetres from our legs. It was such a surreal experience and actually quite scary as the trains are huge, but we were buzzing with excitement afterwards. One minute everyone is out with tables and taking pictures on the tracks then the next, the waiters whip everything away and dive off the tracks and a train comes hurtling through. Surreal!

Our final stop on the street food tour was to enjoy a tradional Vietnamese egg coffee, made using egg whites and yolk. Very tasty 😋

We had one last beer down appropriately named ‘beer street’- a narrow lane back to back both sides with lively bars. The atmosphere was electric and it was a great place to sit and muse about what a great day we’d had in Hanoi.

We stayed a La Beaute Boutique hotel and spa, hidden down a street small enough for only scooters and as such away from the noise in the old quarter but within a couple of mins walk from the hustle and bustle.

It had been well worth revisiting Hanoi as on our last visit, whilst we ticked off the temple of literature and Ho chi min’s mausoleum, the lake and the water puppet show, there is enough to do and see here to fill a week in Hanoi and it had been great revisiting.