Vietnam Trip - Hanoi in September 2022

Hanoi, Vietnam

I went to some parts of Vietnam before, but I had not been into Hanoi (the capital and second largest city in Vietnam), Sapa Village and Ha Long Bay before. I had heard a lot about it from my close friends. One had been there before and shared with me how lovely the places were and why it was worth visiting. Another had not been there, but really wanted to go.

It was in the middle of August and I had already some plans made for the month of September to travel to other countries. Nevertheless, Sapa was famous for its beautiful and pristine rice terraces, cool and fresh mountain air, plus the living place of many ethnic minorities, such as: Hmong (52%), Dao (25%), Tay (5%), and so on. And one of the best time to visit Sapa was in September (before the farmers harvested their paddy fields, so the fields were in yellowish color).

I was looking at my timetables and there was a small gap in between of my planned trips but I did not have accompany as my friend who was interested to go there, was unable to take leave from office. But fortunately, in few days time, I managed to find another friend, who could make time and also take leave from her office. I had to convince her to take six days trip there instead of five days though, since she had also another long-trip planned in the next following month.

Yeah, if you asked me, how many days would be enough to visit Hanoi and the area, I would say 7 days would be ideal. With 6 days planned, I could visit places I wanted to go, but there was one place I missed visiting - Ninh Binh - and that was why seven days would be perfect. Some people could complete all the places within 6 days but they would not stay a night on a cruise in Ha Long Bay, instead, they could only visit on a day trip, but they would miss lots of thing (in my opinion, since I loved a relaxing trip instead of the hurried one).

So, I got accompany, I got 6 days to spare in between of my two trips, then, what was next? I asked my friend a local travel agent contact that she knew from her previous trip. She gave me the contact and I messaged Jacky through Whats App right away asking him for the quotation based on places I wanted to visit. He sent me few itineraries to choose and I forwarded it to my friend. 

I was quite occupied with so many things regarding my other trips. Therefore, I wanted to take this trip easy, with lesser planning, lesser research, and left all the hotels and van transfers booking into the hand of this local agent. I left the choice of the recommended hotel in their hands too, because I believed that they also wanted to give us the best with the budget offered and wanted to make their customers happy with their services. 

So I replied him within few days and confirmed to take their services in the next one month. He trusted me so much just like friends did, that he did not even collect deposit until we reached there (even when there was a local bank account available for transfer). However, in case I had to cancel my trip due to any unexpected circumstances, I had to still follow their procedures to pay for the cancellation fee as mentioned in the itinerary (to be fair, right?)

Thank Buddha that both of us were blessed with good health and could proceed with our trip there accordingly :)

Noi Bai Hanoi International Airport

There were many airlines available from Singapore to Hanoi, especially for direct flight. There were SQ, Vietnam Airlines, Vietjet Air, Bamboo Airways, Scoot, etc. I picked up Scoot since it offered free 10 kg hand carry luggage at the budget rate, and the flight time was perfect for our itinerary too. We flew at 10 am and reached there at around 12.30pm. 

Our guide, owner, cum friend, Jacky, had personally picked us up from the Noi Bai International Airport. He was our food and city guide of the day since we were introduced by my close friend, who had also introduced him to many of her friends who were travelling to Vietnam. He had other group who also came from Singapore that day, but because of this connection, he took his time to accompany me and my friend instead of bringing the other group around.

Upon arrival, I was surprised and happy when seeing many Vietnamese not wearing masks. I thought, wearing mask was still a requirement for Vietnamese there. Many were still wearing for their own health protection instead of a must-do-thing or requirement by the government. So, I was loosen my guard up too while travelling there - only wore it when I was surrounded by the heavy crowd or indoor.

Golden Rooster Hotel, Hanoi - Vietnam

We were dropped first to our hotel, Golden Rooster Hotel, located in the heart of Hanoi Old Quarter. It was designed modernly. We stayed there for total of 3 nights and overall, we really had a good and comfortable stay in the room, and even made friend with most of the staffs there. They were all polite, friendly, professional. We checked in, kept our luggage inside the room, and refreshed ourselves for a while before we started our food tour. It was just nice, time for lunch and we both were hungry!

Our first meal in Hanoi - Banh Mi and Hanoi Beer at Banh Mi 25

We started our food tour by having banh mi (Vietnamese baguette with pate) at Banh Mi 25. The owner had extended their shop to 30 Hang Ca Street to meet the seating demand from its Hanoians and travelers customers who fond of seating longer and enjoying the old Hanoi quarter ambience (check out the above photo and you can see what I mean by that). Since both of us would try few different food during our tour, we decided to order only 1 portion of each food and shared it into half. 

It was such a hot afternoon and I was craving for something cold. It was when I was Jacky what Vietnam beer he would recommend, hahahaha......, and he recommended me the Hanoi Beer that I was holding, and Saigon Beer. I tried only one first though as I wanted to save more space in my stomach for more delicious Vietnam food :)

Second stop, Bún Chả Đắc Kim, to taste the Bun Cha (Vietnamese noodles with grilled pork). Apparently, Vietnam was famous for copycat. Other than the famous branded goods, it was also famous at copycat-ing the famous local street food brands. The copycat shop (decorated also in red and yellow banner) was opened very near from the original one, resulting many visitors had mistakenly gone into the copy cat shop instead of the original one.

Take note on how the original Bún Chả Đắc Kim looks like!!! :)

Luckily we had Jacky with us, so we were able to avoid such a big mistake. Because it turned up that I loved this Bun Cha very much!!! I was even willing to fly there once again just to taste this "Obama noodle". Hahaha... But, why Obama??? You can read the story here.

In the photo, you could see the noodle portion. It was for only 1 pax. We both shared it together. Vietnamese ate a lot of rice and noodles, according to Jacky. They could even eat triple share of it. If I was very hungry, maybe I could finish the whole portion for my self, but not more than that. And yet, most Vietnamese were mostly slim built, not chubby like me ^^"

Train Street in Hanoi

We walked a little bit after these 2 meals. Jacky brought us to visit the train street in Hanoi. I think I saw the clip somewhere online before without knowing where the place was. So I was surprised and very happy when finding this place out, really did not expect to see it there in Hanoi :)

St Joseph's Cathedral, Hanoi

We visited the St Joseph's Cathedral or also called Nhà Thờ Lớn Hà Nội. This church was built resembling the Notre Dame de Paris. It was the oldest church in Hanoi but was not opened when we were there. It opened usually for Sunday mass at 6pm. 

Next, we went to Pho 10 Ly Quoc Su to taste the must eat food in Hanoi - beef noodle soup or Pho. We ordered one bowl well done beef noodle soup to share.

Pho 10 Ly Quoc Su - Hanoi, Vietnam

The ingredients inside the bowl looked so simple. It contained sliced beef, noodles, spring onion, sliced onion, coriander, and clear broth. At the side, they provided fish sauce, slice garlic soaked in vinegar and chili sauce. Usually when eating Pho in Ho Chi Minh, the restaurant would provide additional various vegetables for us to eat together with the beef noodle. But here, they did not provide any. It was simply as it was. Sometimes, simplicity is the best, don't you agree? The next time I go, I will try the half done beef and soak the fried dough into the soup :P

We continued walking to let the stomach digesting the food inside the stomach. Jacky brought us to view the Hoan Kiem Lake, which was known as the lake of the returned sword. There was a legend behind the name which you can read it here. 

Ngoc Son Temple or the Temple of the Jade Mountain - Hanoi, Vietnam

I was curious with what was inside the Ngoc Son Temple (the Temple of the Jade mountain), which was located in the Jade islet of the Hoan Kiem Lake. So we went inside there for a short visit. The temple was built, dedicated to Confucian and Taoist philosophers and also the national hero, Trần Hưng Đạo. It was slightly different from the usual Chinese or Buddhist temple. There was also a huge specimen of Hu Guom tortoise being displayed inside. You had to pay a small fee to enter the temple. It was not included in the tour, but Jacky had kindly treated both of us for the entry. Cảm ơn bạn hiền ;)

Cafe Dinh - where 

And now, it was time for the famous Hanoi specialty coffee - "egg coffee". Jacky brought us to Cafe Dinh, named after the road where it was located (Dinh Tien Hoang Street) - near the Hoan Kiem Lake, instead of Bich Cafe (named after the daughter of Mr Giang who was the founder of the famous Giang Cafe), to try this specialty coffee.

The cafe was located at second floor and a little bit hard to find since the signboard was put above the other shophouses' names. So make sure you turn "your location" in the Google map on to locate this place. This cafe was opened in 1990s. It looked old but many local and tourists loved visiting. 

Egg coffee from Cafe Dinh, Hanoi - Vietnam

Both of us ordered one hot and one cold egg coffee to taste the difference between both types. We could see bottles of coffee being filtered. We could also see how the egg coffee was being made. The history said that the egg coffee was first created back in 1946, during French war (or first Indo China war). There was a pressure of milk shortage. So, Nguyen Giang, who was at that time bartending at the Sofitel Legend Metropole Hotel, whisked in the egg yolk to substitute the milk for the coffee.

I heard about egg coffee just before I planned for my trip to Hanoi. There was a Vietnamese restaurant who was selling it here in Singapore. However, I did not try it as I wanted to taste the original egg coffee directly from Hanoi, where it came from. Other ingredients included sweetened condensed milk, butter, and maybe cheese. 

I finally tasted it for the first time. Before having it, Jacky asked us to stir the coffee wholeheartedly, to ensure that the whisked egg yolk mixing well together with the filtered coffee. Perhaps I did not mix it well enough. I felt that the egg yolk taste was very strong, and at the same time, the filtered coffee was very strong too. Just too bad, I felt both separately, not as a mixed drink. Lol!!! So, it was not my favorite but at least I tried :)

We were all full from all the food that we had (two bowls of shared noodles, one baguette, half bottle of beer, and one glass of egg coffee were all consumed within 2.5 hours). I think our stomach had to rest. It was time for us to go back to our hotel. 

I loved staying in Hanoi Old Quarter because the distance was all reachable on foot. The traffic situation was very challenging though. Human, cars, motorcycles, bikes were sharing the two-way street. There were traffic lights in some areas, however, many ignored its existence. Jacky was very calm walking on the street, as if he owned the road. Hahaha... But funnily, no car or motorcycle blast its horn on him despite walking very slow, and sometimes blocking their way. The car and motorcycle just slowed down and let us walk on the road.

There was a time when I felt like giving up to cross that busy road. Cars and motorcycles were crossing from many directions and I felt I was sweating, thinking when would I be able to stop them to cross that road. Hahahaha.... It was not the road for elderly who walked very slow. I could not imagine myself bringing my parents to walk around Hanoi on foot, might as well bringing them to other parts of Vietnam :D But after some time, I got used to with the traffic. And until now, I often miss crossing those busy roads. Can you believe it???

Chả Cá Thăng Long - Hanoi, Vietnam

We had our free time after the food tour was over. Both of us took a rest inside our room. Before 7pm, we went out to have a dinner not far from where we stayed, called Chả Cá Thăng Long. The restaurant sold fried fish (you could mix it with pork intestines if you liked), a popular dine in place for locals and these days, foreigners like me. The fish was stir fried together with lots of spring onion and dills. After that, you could mix the noodle with the fried fish and veg, raw spring onion, coriander, peanuts, chilli, and dollops of fish sauce. Wow!!! I loved it!!! If I go back to Hanoi, I would have this again too!!! :)

Full Moon or Lantern Festival Street Night Market - Hanoi, Vietnam

Since we were full, it was time for a walk. We decided to walk to the street night market where Vietnamese celebrating the upcoming Full Moon or Lantern Festival (as a result of Chinese culture influence - the intertwined history with China from the past). There, they sold various lanterns (with music and lights) and things related to the festival (although the items sold would mostly attract children - see picture above). 

Train Street in Hanoi, Vietnam

After that we walked back to the train street. The train passed by at around 8.45pm and 9.13pm Hanoi time. We sat and ordered another Hanoi Beer at Hao Hao Cafe while waiting for the train to pass by. It was a cooling night and it was good to just relax at their second floor. We saw two trains passing by then walked back to our hotel to rest.

As I did some research just now, I found out that the train street was no longer opened for public starting September 18th, 2022. You could read the article here. Woahhh.... I thought it was fake news so I checked with Jacky about it, and he confirmed that it was no longer opened for tourists anymore as it was dangerous with the still operating railways and trains. Lucky Aileen and I had our chance to enjoy it when we were there :)

So, that would finalize my post for our first day in Hanoi. Hope it could help you in case you have any plan to visit the capital one day :) Will continue with second day soon :)