What your money is worth today, how far the north really is, and when to come. Then the bún chả and xôi locals actually queue for, fifteen places to eat without meat, a dare menu, the Old Quarter and West Lake in one bite, twenty-four check-in spots, the workshops worth a morning, and six mini maps to walk or ride.
Put together by the Vietnam Crazy Tour team, the locals behind our tours in Saigon, Da Nang and Hoi An. Checked 16 October 2026.
Four things every guest asks us in the first five minutes: what's my money worth, how do I cross the road, how far is everything, and will I need a jacket.
Vietnam runs on the dong (VND), and you will be a millionaire by lunchtime. These are Vietcombank's counter rates, the benchmark that banks and exchange shops price against.
| 1 unit of | Bank buys your cash | Bank sells |
|---|---|---|
| USDUS dollar | 25,650 | 26,060 |
| EUREuro | 28,253 | 29,743 |
| GBPBritish pound | 33,448 | 34,869 |
| AUDAustralian dollar | 17,444 | 18,185 |
| CADCanadian dollar | 17,760 | 18,514 |
| SGDSingapore dollar | 19,643 | 20,519 |
| JPYJapanese yen | 157.51 | 168.36 |
| KRWSouth Korean won | 16.63 | 20.05 |
| CNYChinese yuan | 3,768 | 3,928 |
| HKDHong Kong dollar | 3,204 | 3,360 |
| THBThai baht | 680.66 | 788.37 |
| CHFSwiss franc | 30,451 | 31,744 |
Vietcombank, updated 16 Oct 2026, 07:58 (Vietnam time), in VND. “Bank buys” is what the bank pays for your foreign notes, and that is the number that matters to you. US dollars and euros are the easiest to change. Rates move every day: check today's Vietcombank table.
The Vietcombank rate is for clean, crisp notes. Exchange counters and gold shops inspect every bill before they quote, and they pay less, or hand it back, if a note is:
So bring recent, large, unmarked notes. Ask for the final rate for your notes before you hand them over, and count your dong at the counter.
Typical 2026 prices. The quick trick: drop three zeros and divide by 26 to get US dollars.
Change a little at Noi Bai if you must; the counters there pay less. In town, Hà Trung street, two blocks west of the Old Quarter, is where Hanoians themselves go: licensed gold shops with a rate board in the window, Quốc Trinh at 27–29 Hà Trung being the best known (8:00–18:00, closed Sundays). Banks pay a fair rate too, on weekdays, with your passport. Look for the words “Đại lý thu đổi ngoại tệ” on the door.
Hotels, malls and sit-down restaurants take cards, sometimes with a 2–3% fee. Street food, bia hơi, markets, cyclos and temple tickets are cash only. ATMs give 2–5 million VND a time and add a fee. If the screen offers to charge you in your home currency, say no and pay in dong. Grab works with a foreign card.
Two pairs of notes fool everyone once: 500,000 and 20,000 are both blue, 200,000 and 10,000 are both reddish-brown. Check before you hand them over, especially at night. The 100,000 note has the Temple of Literature on the back: you'll see the real one later.
The city has its own clock and its own logic. Learn these four and you'll move through Hanoi like you were born on a scooter.
Every weekend the streets around Hoan Kiem Lake close to traffic and turn into a fairground: street music, skipping ropes, folk singers, families, selfie sticks. The Old Quarter night market runs from Hàng Đào up to Đồng Xuân Market on the same evenings.
Ho Chi Minh's Mausoleum opens on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and weekend mornings only, from 7:30 to 10:30 (April to October) or 8:00 to 11:00 (November to March). It usually closes for maintenance for about two months in summer. Entry is free.
Most Old Quarter streets start with Hàng, “goods”, followed by what was once sold there: Hàng Bạc silver, Hàng Mã paper offerings, Hàng Gai hemp, now silk. About a third still sell what the sign says. The rest sell phone cases.
Hanoi is phasing in a low-emission zone, starting with the core of Hoan Kiem ward around the lake and spreading to nine inner wards by 2029. Rules for petrol motorbikes and delivery bikes in the centre are being decided step by step.
Since 1 July 2025 Hanoi has no districts any more: the city is divided into 126 wards and communes. The Old Quarter and the lake are now Hoàn Kiếm ward, the streets south of the lake are Cửa Nam ward, and Ba Đình, Tây Hồ and the rest became wards with new borders. Hotel addresses and Google Maps mix old and new names. Same streets, same noodles.
Hanoi is the gateway to the whole north: rice terraces, limestone bays and mountain passes all start here. This is how far they really are from Hoan Kiem Lake.
Noi Bai (HAN) is 26 km north of the Old Quarter: 40–60 minutes by road. A GrabCar runs about 300,000–400,000 VND. Airport bus 86 stops at both terminals and runs to the Old Quarter and Hanoi railway station for about 45,000 VND; it takes roughly an hour.
Hanoi railway station is on Lê Duẩn street, 2 km south-west of the lake. Trains run south to Hue, Da Nang and Saigon, and overnight north to Lao Cai for Sa Pa. Sleeper berths sell out at weekends and holidays: book a few days ahead.
Long-distance buses use the Mỹ Đình, Giáp Bát, Gia Lâm and Nước Ngầm stations, all far from the centre. Most limousine vans to Ninh Binh, Ha Long, Sa Pa and Ha Giang pick you up at your Old Quarter hotel instead. Ask when you book.
Over the Red River, south-east. Bus 47A goes there too.
Allow 75 minutes in the 5–7 pm rush.
Laterite-walled lanes, west towards Son Tay.
Then an hour by rowing boat, then a cable car or a climb.
Pine hills and a French church in ruins. Cooler air.
Part of the Yen Tu World Heritage site since 2025.
A French-era resort at 900 m. Foggy, cool, busy at weekends.
The easiest big landscape from Hanoi. A day trip works.
The sacred mountain, on the way to Ha Long.
Rice valley and stilt houses, over the Thung Khe Pass.
By expressway. Cat Ba is 3–3.5 hrs with the ferry.
Tea hills and plum blossom on Highway 6.
Many buses run overnight.
The famous terraces. Gold in late September.
Start of the Ha Giang Loop. Overnight buses.
By expressway, or the night train to Lao Cai.
Near places: OSRM driving distance from Hoan Kiem Lake on OpenStreetMap data. The north: the same figures as our Northern Vietnam guide. Times are for a normal day; leaving Hanoi between 4:30 and 7 pm adds an hour. Planning the north? Read our Northern Vietnam guide: nine destinations, each with the facts, the food and what to do.
| To | Best way | How long |
|---|---|---|
| Hue | Flight, or the Reunification train | 1 hr 10 by air · 12–14 hrs by train |
| Da Nang | Flight, or the train | 1 hr 20 by air · 15–17 hrs by train |
| Hoi An | Fly to Da Nang, then 45 min by road | about 3 hrs door to door |
| Nha Trang | Flight to Cam Ranh | about 1 hr 50 |
| Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) | Flight | 2 hrs 10 · 30+ hrs by train |
Landing in Saigon, Da Nang or Hoi An next? That's where we ride. Saigon guide · Da Nang guide · Hoi An guide
| To | Best way | How long |
|---|---|---|
| Ninh Binh | Limousine van, bus or train | 1.5–2 hrs |
| Ha Long or Cat Ba | Limousine van or bus (+ ferry for Cat Ba) | 2–3.5 hrs |
| Sa Pa | Expressway bus, or the night train to Lao Cai | 5.5–6 hrs · 8 hrs + 1 by train |
| Ha Giang | Sleeper bus or limousine van | 6–7 hrs |
Seasons, specialties and sample routes for all nine: Northern Vietnam guide
Unlike Saigon, Hanoi has a real winter, a steamy summer and a short, perfect autumn. The mountains and the bay each keep their own calendar. Here is the north, month by month.
Usually 14–20°C, with cold snaps under 10°C. Grey skies, drizzle, and no heating indoors, so bring a real jacket. Tết, the Lunar New Year, falls on 6 February 2027: peach blossom everywhere, but for about five days many family kitchens close.
18–28°C, misty and very humid. Locals call it nồm: floors and walls turn wet on their own. Festival season at the pagodas, and by April the city is green, warm and lovely.
32–38°C, sticky, with sudden thunderstorms that flood streets for an hour. Do what Hanoi does: out at dawn, indoors at noon, back on the street after dark. Iced tea, ice cream and bia hơi exist for a reason.
22–30°C, dry and golden. Green young rice (cốm) is sold on the street, the milkwood trees flower and you can smell them from two streets away. The best season in the city and in most of the north.
No hotel buffets, no laminated menus with photos. These 37 kitchens are where Hanoians queue, argue and eat on stools built for five-year-olds. Fifteen of them cook without meat, and only two are phở shops. You're welcome.
Hanoi's lunch, cooked on the pavement over charcoal. Pork patties and slices of belly grilled until they char at the edges, dropped into a bowl of warm, sweet-sour fish sauce with green papaya and garlic. Next to it: a plate of cold rice noodles and a basket of herbs. The smoke tells you where the good ones are from two streets away.
How to eat it: Pick up noodles and herbs with your chopsticks, dip them in the bowl with the meat, eat. Never pour the bowl over the noodles. Crab spring rolls (nem cua bể) on the side are the classic add-on.
The one where Barack Obama and Anthony Bourdain sat on plastic stools in 2016. The table is behind glass upstairs and the “Obama combo” is on the menu. Touristy, yes, and still a proper bún chả.
A tiny shop on the north edge of the Old Quarter with a MICHELIN Bib Gourmand. Patties wrapped in lá lốt leaves, a broth with more pepper than most. Lunchtime queues; gone by late afternoon.
A lunch-only kitchen in a residential street south of the centre, new to the MICHELIN list in 2026. Small menu, grill at the door, mostly office workers on their break.
Sticky rice is what Hanoi eats when it is in a hurry: at 6 am before work, or at midnight after the bars. The famous one is xôi xéo, rice tinted yellow with turmeric, under a scoop of mung-bean paste and a shower of crisp fried shallots. Then you pile toppings on it until the plate gives up.
How to eat it: Point at the toppings in the glass case. Chả (pork roll), braised egg and shredded chicken are the safe start; pâté and pork floss are for the second round.
The busiest sticky-rice shop in the city since 1997: three floors, a glass case of twenty toppings and a crowd at midnight. Not the cheapest, always open when you need it.
A family stall south of the lake, three generations in. Smaller, cheaper, quieter, and a morning-to-lunch affair.
Yes, phở was born in the north, and yes, Hanoi's version is plainer than Saigon's: a clear, deep broth, flat rice noodles, beef or chicken, spring onion, and that's it. No basket of herbs, no hoisin. We list two here on purpose; there is one more in the Old Quarter list below. Then go and eat everything else.
How to eat it: Taste the broth before you add anything. Then a squeeze of lime, a few slices of fresh chilli, maybe a splash of garlic vinegar.
The bowl Hanoians argue about. Beef stir-fried hard over a roaring flame with garlic before it goes in, so the broth is smoky, rich and oily in a good way. The original since 1979.
Chicken phở with a MICHELIN Bib Gourmand, open until midnight. Ask for the mixed bowl with skin, meat and the little unlaid eggs, if you are feeling brave.
Bún đậu is a tray built for sharing: pressed rice noodles, crisp fried tofu, boiled pork, green rice sausage and herbs, with a bowl of mắm tôm, purple fermented shrimp paste, whipped with lime and chilli until it foams. Chả cá is turmeric fish fried at your table in a pan of dill and spring onions, then eaten with noodles and peanuts. Hanoi named a street after it.
How to eat it: Mắm tôm: whisk it yourself with the lime until it turns pale and frothy, then dip. Too strong? Ask for nước mắm (fish sauce) instead. Nobody will judge. Much.
A busy family shop on the quiet street behind the Cathedral. Trays come loaded, the mắm tôm is properly whipped, and it opens for breakfast.
The modern classic for chả cá, in Giảng Võ, west of the centre: thick chunks of snakehead fish, a mountain of dill, and the pan sizzling on your table. Locals book at weekends.
Bánh cuốn is a rice sheet steamed on a cloth over a pot of boiling water, rolled around minced pork and wood-ear mushroom, topped with fried shallots and dunked in warm dipping sauce. It is usually breakfast, so we picked two that serve all day. Miến lươn is glass noodles with crunchy fried eel, in a broth or tossed dry.
How to eat it: Bánh cuốn: watch the sheet being made, it takes ten seconds. Ask for chả quế (cinnamon pork roll) on the side.
The name for bánh cuốn in Hanoi: a big, busy family shop south of the centre with a MICHELIN Bib Gourmand. Open far longer than a breakfast place should be.
Eel glass noodles a few steps from the Cathedral, another Bib Gourmand. The dry version, tossed with crisp eel and herbs, is the one to try.
A Hanoi family dinner is many small plates and one pot of rice: braised pork with egg, morning glory with garlic, a sour soup, fried tofu with tomato. These places cook it for people far from home, and three of them hold a MICHELIN Bib Gourmand.
How to eat it: Order one dish per person plus rice and a soup, and share everything. That's the rule.
A huge courtyard under a colonial villa, ringed by little kitchens that each cook one street dish. The easiest way to try twenty Vietnamese dishes in one sitting.
Home cooking with a MICHELIN Bib Gourmand: northern family dishes like grandma made, in a small dining room in Láng Hạ.
Northern classics in a narrow townhouse near the Citadel, new on the 2026 Bib Gourmand list.
Up an alley near the old north gate, a house dressed like a 1946 resistance safehouse. Good northern food, great theatre.
Hanoi's bánh mì is the slim cousin of the one in Saigon: less filling, more pâté, and often sold as a snack rather than a meal. Some shops do one thing only, and that thing is grilled pâté.
A counter on Huế street that locals drive across town for: crisp, small loaves stuffed with pâté, pork and chả, eaten standing up.
The bánh mì that opens at 6 pm and closes at sunrise. Loaves grilled with pâté and butter, a fried egg, and a long line of people coming home from somewhere.
Buddhist Hanoi has cooked without meat for centuries, and on the 1st and 15th of each lunar month half the city eats vegetarian. The result is a long list of kitchens that make phở, bún chả and bánh mì with tofu, mushroom and jackfruit, plus a new crowd of modern vegan places. These are the ones we send our guests to.
Say it: Tôi ăn chay, không nước mắm: “I eat vegetarian, no fish sauce.” Show this line at any street stall.
Vegetarian fine dining with a MICHELIN Bib Gourmand: a calm, wooden house by Thiền Quang lake, beautiful plates, Buddhist temple cooking made modern.
A modern vegetarian dining room on Quán Thánh, five minutes from Trúc Bạch lake. Lunch and dinner only.
Family-run vegan and vegetarian kitchen on Tống Duy Tân, the late-night food street west of the Old Quarter.
A small vegetarian restaurant on Tràng Thi, a short walk west of the lake. Vietnamese plates, done neatly.
Street-food prices, 100% vegan: bánh mì, crispy dumplings and sticky rice from a tiny shop south of the lake. Closed on Sundays.
A long-running vegetarian restaurant cooking in the style of the northern delta: hot pot, mushroom dishes, soups.
Elegant vegetarian restaurant near the French Quarter, with set menus and a lunchtime buffet.
An all-you-can-eat vegan buffet by Trúc Bạch lake: fifty dishes, Vietnamese and otherwise.
The local one: a rice-plate canteen in a Ba Đình alley, twenty dishes in trays, priced for students. Busy on the 1st and 15th of the lunar month.
Up a narrow stair in the Old Quarter: vegan home cooking, generous portions and a cat-sized dining room.
A fully vegan Vietnamese kitchen on a quiet Old Quarter lane near Đồng Xuân Market: the northern classics without the meat, cooked with care.
A small vegan café near Trúc Bạch with mixed phở, bánh mì and home-brewed kombucha. Breakfast and lunch.
A bright vegan café-shop on Hàng Điếu: plant-based phở and bánh mì, smoothies, and a shelf of vegan snacks for the road.
Vegetarian versions of the Hanoi canon, a short walk from the lake.
Healthy vegetarian plates, bowls and juices up in Tây Hồ, after a yoga class or a lap of the lake.
Hanoi invented egg coffee in the 1940s, when milk was scarce: egg yolk whipped with sugar and condensed milk into a warm custard foam, floated on strong coffee. The city's other drinking habit is cheaper and louder: iced lemon tea on tiny stools by the Cathedral, at any hour.
Where egg coffee was invented, by Nguyễn Văn Giảng in 1946. Through a narrow corridor, up some stairs, into a crowded room. Order it hot, sitting in a bowl of warm water.
The same family's other branch, run by Giảng's daughter: a steep stair, a tiny room, a balcony over the lake. Less queue, same foam.
Hanoi's ice cream since 1958: green rice (cốm), coconut, taro, on a stick or in a cone, eaten on your scooter seat out front. Everyone does it.
Hanoi's fried “pillow” pastries, stuffed with pork, glass noodles and mushroom, served with pickles and dipping sauce. The afternoon snack.
Not a shop, a habit: iced lemon tea and sunflower seeds on the low stools around the Cathedral, with half the city's students. The stall at no. 2 is the easiest to find.
The badges marked MICHELIN Bib Gourmand are from the 2026 MICHELIN Guide Hanoi, announced on 4 June 2026. The rest are on this page because Hanoians queue for them, not because anyone gave them a plaque. Go early: the best kitchens cook one pot a day and close when it's empty.
We don't run our own tours in Hanoi, so we won't pretend to. Message us your dates and what you like to eat, and we'll tell you honestly what we can set up and what you're better off doing alone.
The short list, for when you're on a street corner, hungry, with 4% battery left. One line each, one map pin each, and none of them repeat the places above.
The 36 streets north of the lake. Everything here is walkable in 15 minutes.
Hectares of water, 3 km north of the Old Quarter. Phở cuốn, snails and shrimp fritters by the water.
The famous lakeside shrimp-fritter restaurant on Thanh Niên road has the view, the history and a 2.3-star rating on Google. Take the photo there, then ride ten minutes to Phủ Tây Hồ and eat where the temple-goers eat.
None of this is strange to us. It's a normal Tuesday. But these are the plates our guests film first and taste second. Dare levels are our own, one to five.
A raw egg yolk, whipped with sugar and condensed milk into a thick foam, on top of black coffee. The warm-up round.
How to eat it: Spoon the foam first, then stir in the coffee from below.
Where: Café Giảng, 39 Nguyễn Hữu Huân, where it was invented.
Marinated in honey and chilli, grilled over charcoal, eaten with your fingers and a bowl of salt-pepper-lime. Lý Văn Phức street is lined with them at night: locals call it chicken street.
How to eat it: Bite between the joints. Leave the nails.
Where: Lý Văn Phức street, north-west of the Temple of Literature, from late afternoon.
The smell reaches you before the waiter does. Fermented shrimp paste, whipped with lime until it foams, for dipping fried tofu and noodles.
How to eat it: Whisk it yourself. Dip the tofu, never the herbs.
Where: Bún Đậu Cô Hoa, 25 Ấu Triệu, or Gốc Đa in Gạch alley.
A duck egg boiled with a nearly formed duckling inside. Hanoi eats it as a night snack, with Vietnamese mint, ginger and salt.
How to eat it: Crack the top, sip the broth, add salt, pepper and a leaf of mint, then eat it with a teaspoon. Don't look too closely.
Where: Night stalls and egg carts around the Old Quarter. Ask at any bia hơi.
Stir-fried until they pop, with finely cut lime leaves. Nutty, a little creamy, and served with cold beer.
How to eat it: One at a time, in a single bite.
Where: On the menu at most bia hơi corners.
Rươi are red-and-green worms from the brackish rice fields near Hanoi, in season only in October and November. They are mixed with egg, pork, dill and tangerine peel and fried into crisp patties. Hanoians wait all year for it.
How to eat it: With bún, herbs and fish sauce. It tastes rich and a little like crab. Honestly.
Where: Seasonal: look for hand-written “chả rươi” signs on Old Quarter restaurant doors. That's right now, in October.
The two we skip: thịt chó (dog meat), which Hanoi's government has asked people to stop eating since 2018 and we never order, and tiết canh, raw blood pudding, which carries a real infection risk. No guide of ours will order either for you.
Our night food tour by scooter in Saigon has its own dare round, with a guide who orders, shows you how, and finishes what you can't.
Saigon night food by scooter · $29From a red bridge on a green lake to a flower market that opens at 3 am. For each one: when the light is right, what it costs, how to get there, and how to get the picture without two hundred strangers in it.
A scarlet wooden bridge arching out to a small island temple in Hoan Kiem Lake. The name means "where the morning light rests". Inside the temple, in a glass case, lies the preserved body of one of the lake's giant soft-shell turtles.
Photo tip: Shoot it from the shore road, not from the bridge. The low angle from the bench by the water gives you the whole curve and its reflection.
A small three-storey tower on an islet in the middle of the lake, built in the 1880s. The lake's legend says a golden turtle took back the magic sword of King Le Loi here, which is why the lake is called the Lake of the Returned Sword.
Photo tip: Use the street lamps or a tree branch to frame it. On a still night the reflection doubles the tower.
Before work, half of the old town comes to the lake: ballroom dancing to a speaker, tai chi, badminton without a net, ladies in matching outfits doing aerobics, old men doing things we can't name. It is the most Hanoi hour of the day.
Photo tip: Ask before you point a camera at someone. Better still, join the dance for one song, and someone will film you instead.
Built by the French and modelled on the Palais Garnier, this cream-and-grey opera house is still Hanoi's grandest stage. The square in front is where couples come for wedding photos.
Photo tip: Cross to the corner of Trang Tien and Le Thanh Tong and shoot it straight on: the steps, the columns and the dome in one frame.
Two square towers of weathered grey stone, built by the French on the site of an old pagoda, and still the heart of Catholic Hanoi. In the square outside, students drink iced lemon tea on plastic stools until late.
Photo tip: Sit down with a lemon tea in front of it and shoot from stool height: the towers, the stools and the crowd tell the whole story.
The French built it in 1896 for Vietnamese political prisoners. During the American war it held captured US pilots, including John McCain, who nicknamed it the Hanoi Hilton. What's left is a powerful museum, guillotine included.
Photo tip: The yellow gate with "Maison Centrale" above it is the shot. Inside, the narrow cell corridors work best in black and white.
A short, tree-lined street closed to traffic and given over to bookshops, reading cafes and benches. Weekend afternoons it's full of families and students; weekday mornings it's yours.
Photo tip: Shoot down the length of the street from one end: the trees close overhead like a tunnel.
A single track squeezed between houses so close that residents dry their washing on the rails. Cafes along it made it famous on Instagram. The honest status: the cafes on the tracks have been officially off-limits since 2019, police clear the area regularly (most recently in March 2026), and in 2026 the government agreed to cut the passenger trains on this stretch. You may wait hours for a train that never comes.
Photo tip: Photograph it from the public pavement at the level crossing. Then walk two minutes north to the Phung Hung murals, which are legal, colourful and train-free.
The red-brick arches holding up the colonial-era railway viaduct have been painted with murals of old Hanoi: a street vendor, a Hang Ma toy stall, a family on a bicycle. Some of them are 3D, so you can step into the picture.
Photo tip: Several of the murals are painted in 3D: stand in the right spot and you become part of the street scene. Go early, before the queue for each one.
Walk into a silk shop on Hang Gai, through a narrow passage, past a family courtyard, and up four floors of stairs: Cafe Pho Co opens onto a rooftop looking straight down over Hoan Kiem Lake. Order an egg coffee and you've paid for the view.
Photo tip: Sit at the front rail and shoot down over the rooftops to the lake. Wide lens if you have one.
A merchant's house restored the way the Old Quarter used to live: three metres wide, sixty deep, with two open courtyards for light and air, dark wood and an altar on the first floor.
Photo tip: Shoot from the first-floor gallery down into the courtyard: it shows exactly how a tube house works.
The oldest temple in the Old Quarter. Legend says a white horse showed King Ly Thai To where to build the walls of his new capital in the 11th century, and this temple guards that spot. Red lacquer, gold, incense smoke.
Photo tip: No flash, no posing at the altar. The carved wooden gate from the street, with the incense smoke behind, is the respectful shot.
Dong Xuan is Hanoi's biggest covered market, wholesale on the inside and street food on the outside. Two blocks south, Hang Ma sells paper offerings, lanterns and decorations: red and gold before Tet, a forest of lanterns before Mid-Autumn.
Photo tip: On Hang Ma, look up: the decorations hang from the first floors. Shoot along the street from the middle at walking pace.
A short Old Quarter street that fills with plastic stools, fresh beer, music and travellers from all over the world after dark. Loud, cheap and very Hanoi. The surrounding lanes are quieter and more local.
Photo tip: Shoot from a first-floor balcony bar down onto the crowd, or from street level with a slow shutter to blur the passing scooters.
The square where Ho Chi Minh read Vietnam's declaration of independence in 1945, with his granite mausoleum at its head. Honour guards in white march every hour. The flag goes up at 6:00 (6:30 in winter) and comes down at 9 pm, every day.
Photo tip: Photos of the outside are fine; inside the mausoleum they are not. Stand behind the rope line, and shoot the guards from the square.
A tiny wooden pagoda balanced on one stone column in a lotus pond, built by King Ly Thai Tong after he dreamed of the goddess of mercy. It was rebuilt after the French blew it up in 1954.
Photo tip: Crouch low at the edge of the pond so the pillar and its reflection make one long line.
The heart of Vietnam's royal capital for 13 centuries, from the Ly dynasty to the Nguyen. Most of it is ruins and gardens now, but the Doan Mon gate, the Kinh Thien dragon steps and the underground bunkers of the war-time command post are all still here.
Photo tip: Shoot the Doan Mon gate from the lawn in front of it, and go down into the bunker: the 1960s telephones are still on the desk.
A temple to Confucius and the country's first national university, with five courtyards, a lotus pond, and 82 stone turtles carrying the names of the scholars who passed the royal exams. The gate tower on the back of your 100,000 VND note is here.
Photo tip: Hold a 100,000 VND note up in front of the Khue Van Cac pavilion in the second courtyard and line them up.
A slim red stupa on a tiny island in West Lake, joined to the road by a causeway. The pagoda dates back to the 6th century, and the sunset over the water behind it is the best free show in town.
Photo tip: Walk along Thanh Nien road until the stupa sits against the sunset, then wait for the light to drop.
Hanoi's wholesale flower market wakes up when the bars close. From around midnight to dawn, trucks and motorbikes unload mountains of roses, lilies and peach branches under bare bulbs, and florists load them onto scooters stacked twice their height.
Photo tip: Shoot the scooters as they leave, loaded with flowers: that's the photo nobody else has. Keep out of the way of the unloading.
A 1.7 km steel bridge built by the French and bombed again and again during the American war. Trains run down the middle, scooters on both sides, and the scooters drive on the left here, the only place in Vietnam where they do. A narrow walkway runs along the edge.
Photo tip: Walk out to the third or fourth span, wait for a train, and shoot along the rails as it passes. Stay on the walkway: never on the track.
A ceramic mural almost 4 km long on the wall of the Red River dyke, made for Hanoi's 1,000th birthday in 2010 and listed by Guinness as the longest of its kind. Dragons, village scenes, children's drawings, all in broken tiles.
Photo tip: Traffic runs right along the wall, so stand on the pavement and shoot short sections, not the whole thing. The stretch near Long Bien is the most colourful.
The best museum in Vietnam, by a long way. Inside: the clothes, tools and rituals of all 54 of the country's ethnic groups. Outside, in the garden: full-size stilt houses, an Ede longhouse and a Bahnar communal house whose roof rises 19 metres.
Photo tip: The steep ladder of the Bahnar house, shot from the ground looking up, is the picture everyone wants.
Across the Red River, a village of kilns and pottery shops where clay has been fired for more than five centuries. Wander the lanes, browse the ceramic market, and throw your own bowl on a wheel.
Photo tip: Shoot the old lanes, where walls are still made of broken kiln saggars, rather than the market hall.
Tell us which spots you care about and when you're in Hanoi. We'll tell you the order that beats the crowds and the light, and whether we can find you a local to ride you there.
Sorted the way we'd plan it for a friend: things you make with your own hands, things that need a local, and the classics that are easy to do on your own.
Learn the trick in the city that invented it: whisk egg yolk, sugar and condensed milk until it holds a peak, then float it on strong coffee. You drink your homework.
45–60 min · classes in the Old Quarter from about US$12
Shop at a local market with the cook, then make three or four northern dishes: fresh spring rolls, bún chả, a pot of phở broth. You eat everything you make, which is the best part.
3–4 hrs · usually includes a market walk
Sit at a pottery wheel and pull up a bowl with a Bat Trang potter coaching you. Yours will be wonky. They fire it and you collect it, or they ship it.
2–3 hrs · studio classes from about US$35–40; cheaper in Bat Trang itself
Dó paper is made from tree bark, beaten, soaked and pressed by hand the way it was for centuries. A social-enterprise workshop in Tay Ho teaches you to make a sheet and a notebook to take home.
About 2 hrs · from about US$29
Tò he are tiny figurines of coloured rice dough, shaped by street artisans in a few minutes: a dragon, a buffalo, your own face. Learn to make your own from a craftsman from Xuan La, the village that makes them.
1 hr · great with kids
Hang Gai and Luong Van Can streets are full of tailors. Pick the silk, get measured, come back for the fitting. Order on your first day, not your last.
24–72 hrs · bring a photo, allow two fittings
Five or six stops across the city: bún chả smoke, phở cuốn by the lake, snails on Quán Thánh, a bia hơi corner. You don't steer, you don't order, you just eat.
3–4 hrs · on the back of a local rider's bike
Bánh mì at midnight, the Long Bien wholesale market, the Quang Ba flower market at 3 am, and the lake at 5 when the dancers arrive. The Hanoi that most visitors sleep through. It's the route on our night map below.
Midnight to sunrise · for the brave
An old Old Quarter house, a family lunch, the story of a street through three generations. Best if you've already seen the sights and want the people.
Half a day · lunch included
The craft villages around Hanoi: incense drying in red fans in the sun, conical hats stitched by hand, lacquer painted in twenty coats. Easy with a driver and a guide, hard to piece together alone.
One day · conical hats, incense, lacquer
Focused on the ride itself, not stop after stop
Cook a real Vietnamese dish start to finish with a local host, not a chef performing for cameras
Covers Old Town plus nearby areas walking tours can't reach
Hands-on egg coffee making, not just watching a barista
Local stalls away from the beach resort strip
Guide's personal picks, not a generic tourist food list
Pick a route, follow the numbered stops, and open it in Google Maps for turn-by-turn directions. Every stop is a place from this guide, including one ride you do at 3 am.
Use two fingers to move the map
Grab Bike gets you anywhere in the centre for less than a coffee, helmet included. For the motorbike routes above, ask us: we'll tell you honestly whether we can find you a local rider for your dates.
Ask on WhatsApp Our scooter tours in SaigonTwo full days cover the lake, the Old Quarter, Ba Dinh and the food. A third gives you West Lake, a cooking class or a workshop, and a night out. Most people then add two or three days for Ninh Binh or Ha Long Bay, using Hanoi as their base.
The licensed gold shops on Hà Trung street, just west of the Old Quarter, usually beat the airport and the hotels. Banks pay a fair rate on weekdays with your passport. The rate on any screen is for clean, new notes: torn, stained, marked or small bills get less, so bring recent $50 and $100 notes.
Not officially. The cafes on the tracks have been off-limits since 2019, police regularly clear visitors from the line, and in 2026 the government agreed to cut passenger trains on this stretch. You can still look along the track from the public crossing at Phùng Hưng and Trần Phú streets, but please don't sit or stand on the rails.
October and November: dry, clear and around 22–30°C. April is also lovely. December to February is cold and grey, often below 15°C, and May to August is hot and humid, with thunderstorms.
A GrabCar takes 40–60 minutes and costs about 300,000–400,000 VND. Airport bus 86 runs from both terminals to the Old Quarter and Hanoi railway station for about 45,000 VND and takes around an hour. Ignore the drivers who approach you inside the terminal.
Yes. This guide lists 15 vegetarian and vegan kitchens, from a MICHELIN Bib Gourmand vegetarian restaurant to a student rice canteen and a vegan bánh mì shop. Anywhere else, say “Tôi ăn chay, không nước mắm”: I'm vegetarian, no fish sauce.
Every weekend, from Friday 7 pm to Sunday midnight. The streets around the lake close to cars and motorbikes, and the Old Quarter night market runs from Hàng Đào to Đồng Xuân Market on the same evenings.
Only with a motorcycle licence and an International Driving Permit issued under the 1968 convention. Traffic is dense, the Old Quarter is one-way, and the centre is becoming a low-emission zone, so most visitors are happier on the back of a Grab Bike or a local guide's motorbike.
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Rates: Vietcombank, 16 Oct 2026, 07:58. MICHELIN Bib Gourmand: the MICHELIN Guide Hanoi 2026 selection. Site fees: Hanoi People's Council fee resolution of December 2023. Traffic rules: Hanoi Department of Construction and press reports, 2026. Distances and map data © OpenStreetMap contributors. Prices and opening hours were checked on 16 October 2026 and they do change: tell us if you spot something out of date.
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