Disclaimer: This trip is much slower paced than our usual ones because we deliberately planned in downtime for jumpstarting our blog. You can probably compact the itinerary into fewer days if you don’t need as much downtime.

Transportation

• Hanoi is super compact and walkable so no need to worry about transportation
• Otherwise, use Grab, a ride-share app, to travel farther distances

We were able to get around just by walking and calling cars via Grab. Grab is great because like all ride-sharing apps, it tells you how much the ride will cost before you even get in. We always chose this over a taxi because it’s one less thing thing to worry about, in this place where it’s so easy to get scammed. In Grab, you can also choose to either pay with card or cash, which can be useful depending on whether you’re trying to conserve or use up your dong. The app’s UI could use a little work though – tech just ain’t the same outside the U.S.

Exchanging Money

• Jewelry shops get you the best currency exchange rates. Try Ha Trung street.
• Omg, 1 USD gets you like 23,000 dong, I can’t even count money that high
• There are 11 different banknotes (or 12? who knows) but many of them even look similar so the point is, again, good luck (and be careful) counting your money…

More on exchanging money at jewelry shops: Ha Trung street is one lined with jewelry shops one after another. My strategy was to go in as many of them as I could, ask for the exchange rate, write it down, and compare. They simply type a number on a calculator to show you the rate. So if I ask to exchange my USD for example, they might type 23,000, meaning that they’ll give me 23,000 dong for 1 USD.

After asking around 8 shops, the range of numbers I got was within 270 dong. While it was exciting whenever I heard a lower number, I realized that this difference is only a matter of cents. It’s not worth your time. You should probably still go into a few, just to sanity check and make sure you’re getting a relatively consistent number. But don’t visit as many as I did- just go ahead and make the exchange.

And make sure to count your dong after the exchange. I sat there feeling like an idiot with my phone calculator because it was a struggle tallying up millions of dongs, yet it wasn’t adding up. I was missing about 40% of it. I must be doing something wrong. The exchanger finally walks up, counts the money, goes to the counter to grab a few more bills and hands it back to me. I continue to struggle to count. He takes the money and feeds it through a money counter. It is now correct. I still do not know if they were trying to rip me off or if it was an honest mistake, but that would’ve been a huge loss if I hadn’t sat through my awkwardness.

Lodging

We stayed at Serene Boutique Hotel. For about $55/night, we got such amazing service. From the moment we stepped inside, they welcomed us with some drinks and a thorough introduction of what to see in the city. There’s complimentary afternoon tea everyday and when we accidentally showed up too early, they totally gave us a pass. When we needed a knife and plates to cut our mango? They went hunting for some. Anything you could possibly ask for, they will try to accommodate your needs. We were not used to, and really appreciated, the staff’s level of dedication.

Itinerary

Day 1:

• 10:30am – land at Noi Bai International Airport
• 11:30am – Call a Grab (rideshare) to Serene Boutique Hotel
• 12:00pm – Drop luggage at hotel
• 12:45pm – Exchange currency for Vietnamese dong at Ha Trung street
• 1:15pm – Eat lunch pt. 1 at Bánh Cuốn Gia Truyền Thanh Vân
• 1:45pm – Eat lunch pt. 2 at Chả Cá Thăng Long
• 3:00pm – Have complimentary afternoon tea at Serene Boutique Hotel, chill at hotel
• 7:15pm – Eat dinner pt. 1 at Bun Cha Dac Kim
• 8:00pm – Eat dinner pt. 2 at Xoi Yen
• 8:30pm – Have egg coffee at Giảng Cafe
• 9:15 pm (1 hr) – Watch water puppet show at Thang Long Water Puppet Theater

Water puppet show at Thang Long Water Puppet Theater

It was… interesting I guess. Being a unique thing to do in Vietnam and only 1 hour long, we gave it a try. As you might guess, it’s a puppet show, on water, narrated in Vietnamese, with live music accompaniment. Reviews online said even if you don’t understand Vietnamese, you could sort of guess what was going on – welp no, we definitely had no clue. I did like watching the musicians play their instruments though, every one of the instruments was so foreign to me! Overall, try it just because it’s unique, but you’re really not missing much if you don’t got time for this.

Tips:
– You can buy tickets at the counter early on the day of, or a few days before. I was able to buy them the same afternoon of our night showing. It’s worth asking your hotel if they could buy tickets.
– I heard it’s more expensive to buy tickets online (and there’s no need to buy them so far in advance anyway)
– I read many reviews to sit as far front as you can, since the seats in front of you block your view. So we paid extra for tickets front and center… and the theater was practically empty! (Only a few miscellaneous tourists like us) Maybe it wasn’t tourist season yet? Maybe it’s because we chose the late night showing?

Day 2:

• 12:30pm – Eat lunch pt. 1 at Bún Bò Nam Bộ
• 1:00pm – Eat lunch pt. 2 at Dong Thinh Nha Hang Mien Luon
• 2:00pm-5:00pm – attend a Hanoi Free Walking Tour. Covers:
  • Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum
  • One Pillar Pagoda
  • Temple of Literature
• 5:00pm – Wait to see Hanoi train pass by fail to see it 🙁 (attempt 1)
• 8:15pm – Check out the night market on Đồng Xuân road, have dinner here
• 9:45pm – Check out Bia Hoi Corner

Hanoi Free Walking Tours

Free walking tours are a pretty common concept anywhere you visit. The concept is that the tour is free, besides what you choose to tip your guide at the end. With Hanoi Free Walking Tours, the guides are students and if you’re visiting places with entrance fees, there’s an expectation that you cover their tickets too, but it’s really not that much. There are a couple tours to choose from, most of which are half day. The options include tours through Old Quarter, war sites, or Ho Chi Minh Complex & Temple of Literature. We chose the latter because it included sites that we would require more context on in order to appreciate. While our guide was very sweet and tried her hardest, it was also quite difficult to understand her English, making the tour not as valuable as these normally are. It might just be a luck of the draw. While on the tour, we heard another guide with great English and it made all the difference, felt a bit jealous heh. But the company was very easy to book with, incredibly responsive, and was very accommodating in handling my date change.

Watch the Hanoi train pass by

We heard about the Hanoi train from our hotel staff. It’s this cute alley located at the intersection of Tran Phu and Ly Nam De streets (just google “Hanoi street train” on google maps). Come because it’s a photogenic spot, and if you get the timing right, you’ll get to see a train whizz by just inches in front of your face. You’ll know it’s coming when the cafe owners along this street start warning you to stand back.

We tried so, so hard to see this train, always going off a wrong rumor of when the train is coming next. You’ll see failed attempts make an appearance every day through the rest of our itinerary. We finally managed to see it at 7:15pm and 7:45pm on a Friday. So we can at least tell you it will show up at those times. Other than that, we also made a note of: 7am, 8am, 9am, 3:30pm, 7:15pm, and 7:45pm, so try those to start with, but I can’t remember the source of our information. Last thing is, from our experience, we have a hunch that the weekday and weekend schedules are different so unfortunately I can’t give you the whole picture.

Night market on Đồng Xuân road

Most people know of the more popular Hanoi night market on Hang Dao street on the weekends, but there’s also night market activities on Dong Xuan road and around Dong Xuan market. We also went on a weekday, so I’m not sure what that means in terms of which days of the week it’s open. Maybe it’s just a limited version on weekdays? I don’t know. There were limited, but enough options to make up our dinner. We were puzzling at this stand when a very sweet mother, a customer of that stand encouraged us to sit down and try it, which we did given a local was straight up vouching for it. She then persisted in speaking Vietnamese to us even though we had no idea what she was saying and was even like, here try this, putting something on our plate. She was so friendly to us, giving an impression that maybe tourists don’t come around here as often. Other than food, the market sold the usual clothing, belts, bags…

Bia Hoi corner

Beer corner! It’s an intersection with several restaurants that place out little plastic tables with little plastic chairs for you sit and drink cheap beer on. We aren’t the type so we didn’t partake. But it’s one of the highlights of Hanoi so worth checking out. You can follow the roads leading from the intersection to see more happening night life spots. And it really is happening. We went on this random weekday night and even then it was so crowded. Just walking through and absorbing everything that was happening was enough of the experience for us.

Day 3:

• 11:00am – Hoa Lo Prison Memorial
• 12:45pm – Eat lunch at Phở Lâm
• 1:30pm – Vietnam Military History Museum
• 3:30pm. – Wait to see Hanoi train pass by fail to see it 🙁 (attempt 2)
• 4:15pm – Walk around Hoàn Kiếm Lake
• 4:45pm – Ngoc Son Temple
• 5:45pm – Snap a pic at St. Joseph’s Cathedral simply because we’re in the area
• 6:00pm – Eat dinner pt. 1 at 52 Lý Quốc Sư
• 6:45pm – Eat dinner pt. 2 at Bún Thang Bà Đức
• 7:15pm – Have che (dessert) at Che Bà Thìn

Hoa Lo Prison Memorial

Also known sarcastically as the Hanoi Hilton, yes some bit of dark humor for you, this was a prison used by the French colonists for Vietnamese political prisoners, and later repurposed by the Vietnamese people to house U.S. prisoners during the Vietnam war. How.. resourceful? It is a dark and heavy place. You’ll see tiny prison cells and read about the awful torture methods used here, along with some strange propaganda suggesting that American prisoners lived a decent life inside. It made me confused. There are no audio guides, just a pamphlet along with your ticket. So it’s not made to be the most engaging museum, but it’s a simple one. There are plenty of displays to read as you tour though the prison.

Vietnam Military History Museum

It’s a pretty large complex with multiple buildings. This museum provides a good overview of all the conflicts that various nations have been involved in with Vietnam.. China, France, the U.S., the long history of war dates far back. It talks about some battles and some personal stories. Pace yourself and it’s not necessary to read every detail, otherwise you may find yourself exhausted by the end. You could spend about 2 hours here, but we were cut short (maybe 1 hr 45min) b/c we had to rush to the 3:30 Hanoi train to take pics. Note that it’s closed Fridays and Mondays.

Walk around Hoàn Kiếm Lake and visit Ngoc Son Temple

I do like that there’s a lot of activity, shops, and people along the lake, so it’s not a bad place to be. But the lake itself is nothing impressive, combined with the fact that it’s pretty smoggy, so meh. We must’ve run into like 3 separate couples getting their wedding photos taken around the lake, none of them looking like they were enjoying the experience out in this sticky weather lol. The Ngoc Son Temple out in the middle of the water was.. fine. There’s a fee you have to pay and not that much to see, a small area, a small temple. We went but don’t think it was that worth seeing.

Day 4:

• 9am-1pm – Take a cooking class with Highway4
• 3:30pm – Wait to see Hanoi train pass by fail to see it 🙁 (attempt 3)
• 4:30pm – Tran Quoc Pagoda
• 4:45pm – West Lake
• 5:00pm – Eat dinner at 66 Phó Đức Chính (Hot pot)
• 7:00pm – Get a massage at Huong Sen Massage
• 10:00pm – Play poker at Loyal Poker Club

Take a cooking class with Highway4

We thought it’d be fun to learn how to cook Vietnamese food. Through our research online, we found that Highway4 is a popular, well-rated option. It’s actually a nicer sit down restaurant that offers cooking classes as sort of a side business. Our half day started with a cyclo ride to the market. Fully understanding how touristy I looked sitting on this comfy shaded chair on the back of someone’s bike, I loved it haha, wheee. To our surprise, we didn’t buy ingredients at this market. The purpose was to take us for the experience, but we were welcome to buy anything we liked, rest assured that we had a local with us for correct prices.

Being cooking enthusiasts, we didn’t feel we learned that much in terms of cooking; I guess these classes must always cater towards entry level guests. The catfish spring rolls were my favorite, but the squid, beef cubes, and floating cake were all alright. But I enjoyed chatting with our guide, one aspect being her English was great. We chatted about her long term goals to get into technology, and how Ho Chi Minh city is a lot more open to the world, about how she’d like to go there eventually.

West Lake & Tran Quoc Pagoda

It definitely gets less touristy in this area. I remember passing a lot of shops that weren’t open. I remember asking hotel front desk trying to validate whether this was a good place to visit, and she didn’t understand why we wanted to come. But if you’d like to get away from the chaotic city center, this is a good option. The Tran Quoc Pagoda makes for a quick stop if you’re here already. It’s pleasant and well kept but a very small area just to see then keep going.

Massage at Huong Sen Massage

Given how affordable things are in Vietnam, why not go for a massage? As usual, we put ample amount of time into “best of” research and found that this option was one of the more authentic experiences out of the lists. We paid for the everything package, which is 105min that includes shower, sauna, massage, some tub thing, and light refreshments, think it was like 350k/person. Note that you’ll be stripping naked though. Also, a tip that the sooner you’re done with the everything else part of the package, the sooner you can start your massage, because regardless of when you start it, you still end at the same time. By mistake, I skipped everything else after my shower and walked straight into the massage lol. I enjoyed it, was good value for a long massage.

Poker at Loyal Poker Club

I stayed in the hotel while Victor did his poker thing, so I don’t have much to say about this. Just that there exists poker if you’re a poker person!

Day 5:

• 1:30pm – Attempt to eat at Bún chả Hương Liên, find it was closed
• 1:45pm – Eat lunch at Phở Thìn
• 2:15pm – Have coconut coffee at Cong Caphe
• 2:30pm – Walk around French Quarters, snap a pic at Hanoi Opera House
• 3:15pm – Check out the Nest Board Game Cafe, (we did not play games)
• 3:30pm – Wait to see Hanoi train pass by fail to see it 🙁 (attempt 4)
• 4:00pm – Eat a banh mi at Banh Mi Lan Ong
• 4:30pm – Walk around Đồng Xuân Market
• 5:00pm – Do some shopping on Hang Bong street
• 6:00pm – Wait to see Hanoi train pass by fail to see it 🙁 (attempt 5)
• 6:30pm – Check out the Hanoi Night Market on Hang Dao Road, have dinner here
• 7:15pm – ACTUALLY see the Hanoi train pass by this time around, in fact, see two trains pass
• 8:00pm – Go back to the hotel to pick up bags then head to airport
• Sun 12:25am – Flight back to the states

French Quarter & Hanoi Opera House

We only came to the French Quarter because we had too much time. There’s not that much for tourists here, even the opera house we just took a picture from outside and left. If you’re interested in seeing a more modern side of Hanoi, unlike the Old Quarter, you can come check out this different side of the city. But just do a loop through it and that’s about it.

Đồng Xuân Market

Not really worth anyone’s time. It’s a dingy, indoor market selling mostly useless, miscellaneous items on the first floor and lots of fabric on the second floor. We went anyways because it’s so often mentioned online, but quickly learned there was no reason for us to go here.

Shopping on Hang Bong street

I didn’t feel compelled to buy anything here. There were a lot of clothing shops but it was either fobby clothing or somehow good prices for brand name athletic clothes so I’m not sure if they were real overstock items or knockoffs- I assumed knockoffs.

Hanoi Night Market on Hang Dao Road

It’s open Fri – Sun, around 7pm – 11pm. I think you could go just to experience night market vibe in Hanoi. It’s busy enough, but I wasn’t impressed by anything here. We tried a few stands for dinner, and although the skewers of various items looked good, they looked better than they were. Again, more clothing shops, maybe some cheap jewelry shops too.