Took a short weekend trip to Hanoi. We arrived at 10am at Hanoi. Weather was nice but a bit hazy, around 19 to 25 degrees throughout the weekend.
Airport was approximately a bit less than an hour’s drive from the airport. We booked airport transfer through the hotel. This was my first trip to Vietnam. Read about many tourists traps so thought we should play safe. (It wasn’t really that bad…)
Hotel booked was the Golden Silk Boutique Hotel, located in the old quarters in Hanoi, among heaps of shops selling silk products. They even have silk sleeping bags…
Hotel is nice. We booked for a room with balcony. There are loads of similarly “boutique”, or small, hotels in the vicinity. Hotel staff speaks English well. When we checked in, another European tourist was seeking the staff’s help regarding a local tour he booked online, that he couldn’t reach the tour operator, ok, so there are tourist traps.
Since it wasn’t time to check-in yet, time to stroll around the city and lunch.
Hoan Kiem Lake (“Lake of the Returned Sword” in English), a local attraction, was just minutes away from the hotel, it’s not a big lake, peaceful but not magnificent.
Lunch time! First meal was the reputed French-Vietnamese fusion restaurant Green Tangerine. I like al fresco dining, but only in the day.
The set lunch there is also nice and inexpensive. Two 3-course lunches plus 3 beers costed app 800,000 Dong (app USD38).
After lunch it was time to check in hotel. There were so many streets and junctions in the old quarters we kind of got a bit lost at first. But it got better after we mentally marked some other hotel buildings – tip is never try to mark the stores, cos they look really similar.
After some rest it was strolling time again. Initially planned to check out the Hoa Lo Prison but we were a bit late… arrived there at 4.45pm and they said close…
So we kept moving, next stop St. Joseph’s Cathedral, built 1886. It looks like Notre Dame.
Time to eat again. Dinner was at Quan An Ngon, the menu there was extensive, but you could always check out the kinds of food there cos their kitchen was open. We had Pho Ga (rice noodle with chicken), grilled squid, pork sausage rolls (self-rolling), and beef rolls (rolled).
Quan An Ngon was not far from the hotel, direct route was only app 15 min’s walk. We went for a beer (again) after cruising around the night market on the street. Wasn’t too impressive, and we were quite early so it wasn’t really crowded.
The area got busier after dark. There were hawkers selling everything. One lady was selling balloons (bottom left), I think she sold 2 during my beer-time there. Drivers could place anything on scooters, but the most impressive was the one on the top-left corner of the above photo.
The Red Suitcase 