HANOI · VIETNAM
Old Quarter mornings, limestone afternoons.
Street food and lake walks in the thousand-year-old capital, then day trips out to Halong Bay, the Ninh Binh karsts and the rice terraces of Sapa.
Only here
Three things that only happen in Hanoi.
Cruises and food tours run in every Asian capital. A train through the front rooms, egg coffee whisked over a hidden alley and puppets dancing on water do not.
Inches from the rails
The Old Quarter Train
Twice a day a working train eases down a lane barely wider than the carriages, past cafe tables and front doors in the heart of the Old Quarter. Regulars fold the chairs away as the horn sounds, then set them back the moment it has passed. No other capital runs the railway through its living rooms like this.
- 1 Hanoi: Guided Food Tour with Train Street Visit
- 2 Hanoi: Street Food Tour with Train Street & Hidden Alleyways
- 3 Hanoi: Guided Street Food Tour with Train Street Experience
Born in 1946
Egg Coffee, Whisked by Hand
When milk ran short after the war, a Hanoi bartender beat egg yolk and condensed milk into a sweet custard and floated it on strong Vietnamese coffee. Ca phe trung was born, and the family cafe that invented it still pours it down a narrow alley off Hang Bac. It drinks like a warm tiramisu.
- 1 Hanoi Coffee Experience: 6 Brews, 9 Recipes & 3 Liquor Tastings
- 2 Hanoi Coffee Workshop: Taste Salt, Coconut and Egg Coffee
- 3 Hanoi: Salt Coffee Workshop Awake Your Senses With 6 Brews
A thousand years old
Puppets on the Water
Mua roi nuoc grew out of the flooded rice paddies of the Red River Delta a thousand years ago. Lacquered figures skate across a waist-deep pool while hidden puppeteers work them from behind a bamboo screen, a live band keeping time. The theatre on the edge of Hoan Kiem Lake still fills every night.
- 1 Hanoi: Water Puppet Show Tickets
- 2 Hanoi: Water Puppet Show Ticket with Hotel Delivery Add-On
- 3 Hanoi: Thang Long Water Puppet Show Ticket – Skip The Line
Start here
If you only book one thing, start here.
More first-timers begin their Hanoi trip with this than with anything else.
The classics
Hanoi's Most Popular Experiences
Street food walks, Halong Bay cruises, the vintage-jeep city tour and the run out to Ninh Binh. The ones most people come for.
Where to begin
The experiences a trip to Hanoi is built around.
Halong Bay cruises, the Ninh Binh karsts, street food after dark, a cooking class, the trek up to Sapa and the thousand-year-old puppet theatre. The handful of days most trips are planned around, and the best of each.
The big day out
Which way to Halong Bay?
It is a two-and-a-half-hour drive each way to the most famous seascape in Vietnam, so the how matters as much as the if. Three ways to see the bay from Hanoi, depending on the nights you can spare.
The karst country
Where the rivers run under the mountains.
Two hours south of Hanoi the limestone that built Halong Bay rises again out of the rice fields of Ninh Binh. Row-boats thread the flooded caves of Trang An and Tam Coc past temples, paddies and cliffs people call the Halong Bay on land.
Ninh Binh day trips →The far north
Rice terraces and mountain trails.
North-west of Hanoi the land folds into the highest mountains in the country. Sapa stacks its rice terraces up the valleys below Fansipan, hill-tribe villages sit a day's walk apart, and the Ha Giang loop runs a motorbike road through the wildest passes in Vietnam.
- 1 Sapa 2 Days 1 Night From Hanoi – Overnight in Ta Van Village
- 2 Hanoi – Sapa 2 Days 1 Night Overnight At Homestay
- 3 Sa Pa: Muong Hoa Valley Trek and Local Ethnic Villages
Eat the city
Hanoi runs on its street food.
Pho simmered overnight, bun cha grilled over coals, banh mi from a cart and egg coffee to finish. The city eats on plastic stools on the pavement, and the way in is to follow someone who knows which corner does what.
The best Hanoi street food tours →By place
Base in Hanoi. Explore the north.
The Old Quarter for the food and the lake. Halong Bay for the limestone islands. Ninh Binh for the karst rivers. Sapa for the rice terraces. Cat Ba for the quiet water. Ha Giang for the open road.
By experience
Pick the kind of day you want.
A food walk if you came hungry. A cruise if you want the islands. A cooking class, a motorbike tour, a mountain trek, or a seat at the water-puppet theatre.
Plan it
A first trip, in three days.
Never been? A long weekend that takes in the city, the bay and the karsts without a wasted hour.
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