Hanoi City Days, Quickly Summarized By Cafes, Lake Time, and Food

We made it to Hanoi, a smooth flight experience, except for having to change our gate and it being slightly delayed but besides that it was better than the other few we’ve had. We pulled into town at 11am, I don’t know I was thinking this city would be when I researched it. I was thinking it would be a small city vibe like Hoi An, but I didn’t realize that it is the actual capital of Vietnam. I felt so dumb thinking the Ho Chi Minh City was the capital, maybe I was thinking that because that was the one I had heard of more before doing research for this trip. So truly, I had no idea how huge this city would be. Upon reflection, it seems to be a mix between Bangkok for its size and Ho Chi Minh because of its Vietnamese roots. I wasn’t ready for another huge city, and we are saving our fun nature stuff until the end of our stay here so we are kicking it off with a big city vibe that I wasn’t anticipating. What this city really reminds me of is Milan. The city itself is quite mid (my friends and I called Milan... Midlan) but its so central to so many great places that you have to stay there, and you then might as well save some time to see the city itself. 

We had some issues with the rain, it was raining when we got picked up from the hotel and it lasted our whole drive to the hotel. We checked in first thing, this is definitely the lowest quality of stay, my thought process was that we would want to have a home base and the less expensive it was then we wouldn’t feel guilty if we did an overnight somewhere else such as our boat trip to Ha Long Bay. Then we can keep our stuff there instead of doing a full pack up and unpack. Ease is my first priority and the biggest thing I learned when traveling Europe. I think I am starting to feel the fatigue of the big cities on me, trying to navigate Hanoi with its busyness, heat, and sporadic rain, a plan is near impossible to make and timing the rain takes a superpower. Something I wasn’t expecting is that all the weather apps here don’t predict or gauge the rain very well. The weather apps are unreliable and that adds to the difficulty of making plans. 

We found ourselves hanging out at cool cafes and eating our way through the city. We got lunch at a vegetarian restaurant a few doors down from our hotel, it stopped raining while we were eating so we started walking to our first sight to see, a coffee shop called the Note Coffee, where visitors take a post-it note, write something, and stick it to the wall or anywhere in the cafe. It was cool to see, got some coffee, but it was warm and busy. We needed coffee after our early morning, but it wasn’t raining while we were in there and we weren’t sure if it would rain again today so we thought we should take advantage of the clear sky while it was ours.

We ended up walking around Hoan Kiem Lake which was so gorgeous and peaceful. We stilled ended up back at a cafe, stopping at an awesome place that overlooked the lake and we shared a grapefruit tea that was absolutely delicious. 

We then did some more exploring through Old Quarter which had the coolest architecture and so many bars and restaurants. It was fun walking through there, admiring the buildings, and making the city feel a bit more sentimental and small. The walkability of it added to our ease and enjoyment of the area. We did a lap of the area and then were set to get banh mi for dinner.

The place we wanted to go to was sadly closed once we got there, a commonality that we have gotten used to... where it says its open online but we get there and the metal gate is up. We had passed a nearby vegetarian restaurant and just chose to eat there out of convenience. We ended up trying these cool “pancakes” but really it was a like a large fritter filled with veggies that you wrap up in rice paper (you build it yourself) and fill it with the additional toppings on the plate. This appetizer made it worth going here because not only was it tasty, it was a new dish that we got to try, and it was very interactive. Our server showed us how to make them, thankfully, because I know that neither of us would have thought to roll it up and instead just pick and eat at the different components on the platter.

We both also had Pho for dinner. A classic and traditional Vietnamese dish, it was our second time having it and I really enjoyed this one. I think of Pho as Vietnam's chicken noodle soup. A hearty feel good mood, a warm broth that is filled with noodles, veggies, and protein. It was delicious and cool to try another one to compare. I will admit, it is very tasty, but I do prefer some other Vietnamese dishes as the warm soup does not always pair well with the scorching heat outside. 

Full bellies, we made our way back to our hotel, and chilled for the rest of the night. Each night we have been quite gassed and just need some time to veg on the bed to mentally regroup and go through the photos and activities we accumulated during the day. We also had to plan out and strategize the rest of our time in Hanoi, making sure to not miss an important must see.

We had a slow first day, and we also had a slow second day. We were overwhelmed with the size of this city and struggled to strategize what we would see. We knew the first thing on the agenda should be to get some breakfast. One thing I haven’t been able to depart from is my western breakfasts, no part of me wants pho or non-breakfast food for breakfast. So we found a vegan cafe, walked over there, and split scrambled tofu, coffee, and a smoothie bowl. It was so delicious, and we were fueled for the day. We would soon come to realize we would need that fuel for the minor stress that would soon follow us. 

Something else very important on our list of things to do was see Hanoi’s train street (pictured above, photos by me from street view). Our hotel was actually right next to it which was great, but we ended up walking 15 minutes to our brunch place to just turn right back around and head to train street. But we wanted to do this site justice and see it at the best spot which was the station right near our hotel. We tried to do as much research as we could to figure out exactly how to “do” train street and get a good spot for it. It’s hard to know what time the train goes by, it for sure passes at 9am and 7pm, the other times are much more random and there’s no good place online to find out. I reached out to a nearby cafe that said a train was passing at 11am, so after our breakfast finished up at 10am, we headed in that direction to catch that train. 

When we got to the street closest to the area of cafes that have the best view of the train passing, we sought to get “invited” to a cafe. It is such an interesting process that I read about. Recently the city of Hanoi had closed down train street to be walked past for safety reasons, so in order to get to some of these cafes, the owners have to find you at the nearby street and bring you back through a narrow backdoor entrance. I wasn’t sure if there was an area that we could walk down and peruse and pick our favorite. Because you can’t walk along the tracks, it makes it really hard to do that. We ended up getting invited to this one cafe, but it was so small, the options for drinks were terrible, the view wasn’t good, and part of us was unsure if this train was actually passing by at 11am. We were able to get out of this cafe unscathed by the fact they didn’t accept card and we ran out of Vietnamese dong. Thankfully they didn’t accept card, we both thought. That might not sound too tiring, but we had no idea which of the three “train streets” we should go to, how the inviting process would go and if we could just try to find a cafe on our own, also grab/uber drivers trying to swindle us into a ride to a more southern train street in order to profit on our helplessness and get us to ride unnecessarily. Not being able to figure out how to get to a different cafe, and being so close to our hotel, we ended up going to our nearby vegan restaurants for coffee and crepes, and then back to the hotel to regroup for a moment and really figure out what to do for the day.

We found some places that we wanted to go to, we also thought we deserved a cafe moment, heading back to our favorite, Laika Cafe, the one that has the most incredible view of the lake. We enjoyed our time there, stared out at the view, got some extra caffeine from the blueberry tea we shared, and then we were ready to get after the day. 

We stopped at a banh mi place for lunch, we both got a sub and split a bao (veggie stuffed bun). We inhaled it while seated at a park bench next to the lake. We loved this lake.

We kept escaping the bustling city to hang by this lake, mainly because both of us were seeking nature so desperately that we had to compromise for the very likely man made lake in the middle of this busy city. We loved being somewhat close to nature, and to be near a lake felt like a glimpse of home. The ocean doesn’t remind me whatsoever of Minnesota, but a body of water such as a lake, yes, that is homey. And with Izzy, it was what we needed. We were just about to leave our picnic spot when we got approached by a man wanting to make a tik tok with us about playing english language games. Izzy and I agreed thinking it would take a few minutes. I kid you not, 20 minutes later, we finally were done recording with them and we then headed on our way. 

Our destination was the Women's Museum, one we were both excited to go see. On the walk there, we stopped at Uniqlo, a clothing store, seeing if there was anything calling to us at an amazing price. Sadly the $1 lunches didn’t translate into $5 clothing, it was more around $15-$20 and so I switched from shopper mode to admirer of the options. We did our rounds of the store, and then finished our walk to the museum. When we got there, we went to the first exhibit and it was all about women and family- getting married, the traditions around it, and also building a family. It was cool to see some photos how a village marriage goes about. Also, the cultures of healing a mother post birth and the ways to promote infant health was another takeaway from the exhibit. We also saw women at work, their active part in the war effort, their fashion and style, and more. It’s funny to see the pace of our reading at the first exhibit and how we just keep getting faster and reading less, to the last exhibit I probably walked through in about 2 minutes because I was so tired and warm (there was no temperature control in the museum), and the go-go nature of our travel getting to us. 

Another thing that I believe contributed to our fatigue was the lack of excitement for this city. Don’t get me wrong, Izzy and I were excited to see Hanoi and there is a lot that it offers. But we had completely different expectations of the city which through us off immediately, and we felt content sightseeing the big cities of Bangkok and Ho Chi Minh City, we thought we were done with them after those two, but nope, we unknowingly had Hanoi as a big city as well. Plus, our favorite area, the lake, was a good 15 minute walk from our hotel, and half the walk you are in the street because all the parked motorbikes take up the sidewalk. Along with that you are navigating the street vendors, the locals sitting on a stool chatting/eating/running a business, and the uprooted tiles of the street that are displaced by the overgrown street trees. When I say this place is busy, what I really mean is controlled chaos, well, kinda controlled. We wanted chill, but we got the exact opposite and we weren’t mentally ready for it. Hence the escape to the cafe and the lake was our saving grace.

For dinner, we grabbed some food at Green Inn, a nearby restaurant with authentic Vietnamese food, trying to get in as much as we could before we left, this being a new top cuisine of mine. We ordered some pho and stir fry and split of course. That was the end of our day, we aimed for an early night because we booked ourselves a day trip for the following day, so we had that early morning we have been getting so used to in store for us.