Hanoi is the stop on this trip where I didn’t see a single major sight – and it’s still one of the cities I think about most.
We had just two-nights in the city, and instead of ticking off temples or museums, we just wandered. It turned out to be exactly the right way to do Hanoi. The Old Quarter has a buzz that doesn’t need an itinerary to make you appreciate it – you really just need to be in it.
The scooters
I found the drive into Hanoi completely misleading. As I always do when I travel on any form of public transport, the window is my world and my eyes are firmly fixed on the scenery, and the locals we pass going about their daily business. It’s exciting to watch and often gives a fuller picture of your final destination. In the case of Hanoi the preceding scenery certainly did nothing to prepare me for the buzz and complete craziness of the city. The drive took us through green rice fields with farmers moving their cattle. Hanoi hit us with the complete chaos of thousands of scooters moving in every direction, horns going constantly. I’d never seen anything like it; but I knew I loved it. And when you look closely, it isn’t quite the chaos that first hits. Somehow no one stops, everyone just flows around each other. And the horns are the communication, each beep conveying a move everyone else on the road understands.
For pedestrians, crossing the road is its own small act of faith, something the locals have mastered, but for tourists it takes a while. And watching this weird rhythm unfold was exciting. The buzz was quite infectious. I honestly loved watching it all unfold and embracing that strange rhythm that, when you stop expecting the madness to make sense, it then somehow kind of does.
The best meal of the trip
Not because it was the tastiest meal or even the most satisfying, but because the set up felt unbelievably real. Lots of people talk about authentic experiences and one of my favourite parts of travel is trying to dig those out. Not the set-ups staged to look authentic, the set-ups that actually are authentic. The ones the locals choose. And often, when you’re not following the guidebooks to the letter, you find a little something that stays in your memory for life.
My experience of food in Hanoi was a little like this. I didn’t have a set itinerary and the wandering uncovered a lot I’d probably have missed if I’d tightened my time and stuck to the books and recommendations I had with me.
I’d noticed several tiny street BBQ setups as we walked along. Locals were buying food to eat as they went, quickly stopping at what looked like small shops, newsagents really, where you might get a pint of milk and a snack rather than a meal. I’d noticed all sorts of things cooking – non-descript meat skewers mainly. I decided to stop at this one small place, somewhere in the Old Quarter, and perhaps because we were clearly tourists, rather than just buying and walking on, the owner set us up with somewhere to sit and eat — just a few upturned bottle crates as seating and a table. It was insane but brilliant. We had several of the non-descript meat skewers but also whole frogs, just cooking away on the grill. We ate sitting right there on the pavement, basic in every possible way, but it’s still one of my favourite meals from the entire trip. Sometimes the best food experiences are the ones with the least ceremony.
Why two-nights was enough, and also not enough
We didn’t see the sights, and I don’t think that matters. Hanoi gave us exactly what a short stop should – a real feel for a place, not a checklist. If anything, it’s made me want to go back and actually do the version with the temples and the museums, now that I know I already love the city underneath all of that.
If you’re planning your own version of this
The Old Quarter itself is the obvious place to base yourself — browse options here, though I can’t speak to any of these hotels specifically, as we didn’t experience them firsthand, you can grab my free pre-booking checklist to help with your decision. It includes the questions I’d ask before booking anywhere, wherever in the world I landed.
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