Sure it’s noisy, chaotic, busy, congested, and has some weird smells, but Hanoi is an amazing city and it’s nice to be back. This is our second time in Hanoi, we were first here in January 2019 with our kids.
Hanoi oozes energy, and during the weekend it feels like all 8.5 million people of Hanoi are out enjoying the city.
We arrived into Hanoi Saturday afternoon after flying in from Vientiane. On our prior visit here, we stayed in a four bedroom house not too far from the Old Quarter. This time, we are in a modern high rise condo with a loft bedroom, 20 minutes away from the Old Quarter. We selected this place because it has a washer/dryer combo in the unit and we need to wash our clothes.
As an American accustomed to large washing machines and dryers, these washer/dryer combos take some time getting use to. We used a couple this past October in Portugal and this is our second time using a combo machine on this trip, as we also did laundry while we were in Chiang Mai.
Last night we had dinner at a restaurant close to where we are staying. We actually made it an early night.
Today we left the condo and took a grab to the Opera House at 10:30. After arriving, I soon bought Banh Ran (Vietnamese donuts) from a street vendor. We felt that we didn’t have to revisit any specific things like Hoa Lo Prison (Hanoi Hilton), Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum, or Temple of Literature since we went to those places in 2019.
Being the weekend, there were a few streets closed to traffic near Hoan Kiem Lake; that said there were little kids in motorized cars that were driving around (very cute). We went to Ngoc Son Temple which is surrounded by the lake.
We than took our life into our hands as we dodged scooters, motorcycles, and cars while we walked around the Old Quarter. We had a wonderful lunch at Bami Bread – Banh Mi Hoi An, where they make delicious Vietnamese sandwiches.
We did a little shopping and walked over to Train Street where we had a beer and waited for the train to come roaring by.
We walked over to the French Quarter and then walked over to Ta Hien Street, which is better known as Beer Street. This is my kind of street! We got a beer at Babylon 2. For the dinner we walked a few blocks and we both got pho at Zo 26, where we sat in low plastic chairs. LOL
We ended our evening by visiting the Weekend Night Market where we did a little more shopping.
We are big fans of the food in Hanoi, it is very tasty and as an added bonus it is incredibly inexpensive.n
Traveling Walters 