How close?…that’s pretty close!!!!

#hanoi

#hanoistreettour

#avalon

#checkthisoffourbucketlist

We both had a great night’s sleep for our first night in Hanoi. With an 11 hour time difference ahead of Fort Erie, Ontario and 2 long flights, coupled with a 12 hour layover in between, who knew how we would feel this morning?

We were awake around 6am and decided to get dressed before showering and head directly to the 63rd floor of the LOTTE hotel for our included ‘breakfast’ buffet. I air quote ‘breakfast’ because there was so many different foods to choose from we ended up eating food that we would usually eat for lunch or dinner!

Miso soup

All kinds or meats and pork buns

Breakfast breads and Bonne Maman jams, Nutella and Peanut Butter

Chicken Pho. Twice I’ve had this favorite soup of mine in the two days we’ve been in Hanoi.

Shrimp and salad for Richard

Miso soup for me

Fermented cabbage, vegetable samosas, mung bean pancake, avocado and banana salad (weird but super tasty) and fresh salad with lime ginger dressing. I really enjoyed my salad for breakfast!

We had hired a private guide today based on a recommendation from travel industry friends of Richard’s who had been to Hanoi before and had Quin as their guide on a group tour in the past. I had messaged Quin, the guide on WhatsApp while we were still in Canada a few months ago to see if he was available to take us out today. Quin does work for National Geographic, Rhodes scholars and other private higher end tour companies so we were really lucky to get him today. I had messaged Quin a rough itinerary of things we wanted to do on our tour when I was still in Canada. Yesterday Quin reconfirmed what it was that we wanted to do so that he would put our tour together for us today.

We met Quin at 10am in the lobby of our hotel (LOTTE) and he reconfirmed our itinerary for the day and then he added some more stoops for me to get great photographic memories.

Quin called a ‘GRAB’ which is similar to UBER in Canada except you don’t have to add a Visa card in the App and you can pay in the local currency, Vietnamese DONG. We hopped in the Vinfast electric GRAB and we headed to Hang Bac area of Hanoi (about a 28 minute ride). The traffic was crazy with bumper to bumper cars and scooters, but we spent the time on the way learning from Quin about Hanoi.

The first stop of our tour was to try something very authentic to Hanoi and we went to the coffee shop owned by the daughter of the man that invented this sweet treat.

In the 1940’s the Egg Coffee was invented by Nguyen Van Giang a bartender at the Sofitel Legend Metropole Hotel in Hanoi. He used egg yolks as a substitute for very scarce milk to make the coffee creamy. Giang experimented with whisking egg yolks with condensed milk and sugar to create a rich, creamy topping for very strong Vietnamese coffee. ‘Egg’ coffee was invented and is a symbol of Hanoi’s very strong coffee culture. Giang left the hotel eventually and opened his own coffe shop. Cafe Dinh Egg is still family-run by his daughter to this day.

Cafe Dinh Egg on the 2nd floor of a building in the Hang Bac area of Hanoi.

Quin our guide paying for the egg coffees. I had a green tea instead of egg coffee as I do not drink coffee.

Very nice presentation on top of the egg coffee. I did try the sweet foam before Richard stirred it up into his coffee. It was delicious!

Quin told Richard he had to quickly stir up the foam into the rich dark, strong coffee under the egg foam.

Sitting on low stools and drinking egg coffee like a local.

The egg coffee inventor’s daughter who still runs Cafe Dinh Egg to this day.

Many other Vietnamese coffee shops now offer Egg Coffee on their menu, but Quin, our guide wanted to make sure that we had the ‘original’ egg coffee today and not just imitations of the secret original family recipe!

On September 2nd, 2025 Vietnam celebrated 80 years of independence. We saw evidence of the big celebration that was held to celebrate the independence with red flags flying everywhere around the city of Hanoi.

A quick history lesson on Vietnam for those of you who might not know or have forgotten what transpired over the past 150 years so that Vietnam is now a unified, independent country run by a one party, communist government.

In 1883 France took over Vietnam through their French Colonialism and integrated the territory of Vietnam into ‘French Indo China’. France held onto Vietnam until after WW2 when the first Indochina war occurred and Ho Chi Minh, a communist leader of the Viet Minh party declared Independence. In 1954 during the Geneva accords, Vietnam was divided into North and South Vietnam with the North being communist and the South being the Republic of Vietnam (1955-1975) a capitalist, anti-communist state. South Vietnam received substantial aid and support form the United States (The Vietnam War) and it fought against the communist National Liberation Front for South Vietnam also known as the Viet Cong, which was supported by North Vietnam. The conflict and push for reunification by the North ultimately led to the Fall of Saigon on April 30, 1975 and the official reunification of Vietnam into the Socialist Republic of Vietnam in 1976.

We saw evidence of the French Colonialism in the architecture of Hanoi’s Old Quarter.

Yellow buildings have French architectural cues like painted shutters and small wrought iron balconies off French doors.

Another version of French architecture in the Old Quarter in Hanoi.

We walked around the Old Quarter of Hanoi taking in the sights and sounds, all while trying to avoid getting run over by the scooters and taxis that were buzzing about the streets.

A lady cycling with pottery for sale I can’t imagine how heavy this bike must be and how she doesn’t drop the bike and smash something!

Fruits and vegetables everywhere for sale on the sidewalks. The country of Vietnam is very bountiful with fresh produce in the countryside

A typical narrow side street in Hanoi. The sidewalks are supposed to be for pedestrians and the police can fine people for using the sidewalks to sell their wares. Usually a warning is given before the police come for an inspection and by the time the police arrive everything is back inside the stores and the sidewalks are pristine for pedestrians to use. We mostly walked in the road because the sidewalks as you can see were completely taken over with goods for sale.

Houses are typically very skinny in Hanoi because the width of the house determines the amount of taxes the owner has to pay. In most cases there are no windows on the side of the house in case the neighbour decides to add onto their house (build up) and there goes your view!

The small 3 storey house with the yellow and red sign would sell for about $500,000 USD. Typically families live above their stores or they rent out the main floor and it covers their living expenses above the store at street level.

Quin walked us to a street where we grabbed a drink to watch the 11:30am excitement.

Enjoying a fresh coconut water

Selfie time with Richard and Quin before the big excitement

By now you’ve probably figured out that those are train tracks. And you can see our table on the left almost touching the end of the sidewalk, which meets the area where the train passes by.

The lady that owned the coffee shop we were at was the ‘ring leader’ for getting people off the tracks before the train arrived. All of the cafes in this small street manage to do a thriving business before the trains arrive 7 times a day from 7am to 11pm. The show is to see how close the train gets to the people sitting in the cafes enjoying a beverage. Many of the cafes post the train times on chalkboards to attract tourists to come to their establishment, have a drink and wait for the train to go by.

And yes I am leaning in away from the train and Quin has my arm to make sure I do not lean right and into the train. It was quite an experience hearing the train whistle and then seeing a train coming so close to me, down the tracks. For anyone who has taken a GO train in Canada before when GO Transit says “Please stand well back of the YELLOW platform lines”…pedestrians are a lot closer on Train Street than the GO train yellow platform lines!

The French built the railroad in 1902 and the main track goes right through downtown Hanoi to this day. In 2019 the Vietnamese government shut down businesses along the train tracks for safety reasons but their actions prompted many complaints on social media because of the negative local effect on tourism. Train street reopened in early 2023 for tourists.

I took two videos of the two trains we sat and watched go by while enjoying our beverages. I will post them on Facebook as the files are too large to import into the blog.

Quin put a beer cap onto the tracks before the train went by. This was all that was left of the beer cap after the train had passed.

After visiting Train Street it was time to head to our Michelin star rated restaurant for some pork noodle soup. They say Imitation is the greatest form of flattery and in this case there are 2 other restaurants next to the Michelin star rated restaurant that copied the sign of our restaurant exactly to confuse tourists into thinking they were eating at the Michelin star rated restaurant.

If you look closely the sign in red with yellow lettering on the far left looks very similar to the Michelin selected restaurant called Bun Cha Dac Kim that we were going to have lunch at today. There was also another copy cat restaurant across the street with the same sign too. It is funny that there are no laws to prevent such a thing in Hanoi.

Pork and green papaya thinkly sliced in broth with either crab or vegetable spring rolls

When we climbed up 2 very narrow spiral staircases of stairs we were seated at a wooden communal table with low stools. We were each given a plate of cooked rice vermicelli noodles and the plate of fresh lettuce. Soon the steaming bowls of broth, pork and green papaya arrived as well as some veggie spring rolls. The way to eat the soup is to add some broth to the smaller bowl, add some lettuce, lime juice or chili peppers to taste and then add the rice noodles on top. The spring rolls were to be soaked in their own bowl of broth, just to get them moist and then eaten directly. The food was fresh and very delicious. My broth had only green papayas thinkly sliced without any pork. Oh so yummy!

The open kitchen of the restaurant! The deep frying was taking place outside the restaurant on the front sidewalk. Why offer more than one main course if it works?

After lunch Quin took us to see Hanoi’s Old Quarter’s narrow streets which only the locals know about since they were not through streets. We saw where the locals live, go to school and where they hang their laundry!

The narrow, winding streets of Hanoi’s Old Quarter. Quin was born in this part of Hanoi and knows his way around the many shortcuts through the city.

The alley dwellings are so small, but everyone takes their shoes off before entering their home.

This mural was on a local school. The laundry hanging out to dry just adds to the ambience of the area!

I thought this was an amazing painting of a dog on a wall in the Old Quarter.

One thing that Richard really wanted to have made for him while in Hanoi were a couple of custom shirts. Quin said the best place for custom shirts in Hanoi based on family and friends recommendations was ‘Tailor Ngominh’, so off we walked to find this shop.

I chose the fabric for the two casual short sleeved shirts Richard is going to have made.

Tomorrow we return to the shop for a fitting at 4pm and the shirts will be delivered to the LOTTE hotel on Saturday to our room while we are touring with the group. The cost of 2 custom made shirts was $189 CAD.

Hanoi is preparing for the ‘Mid-Autumn Festival’ also known as the “Children’s Festival” which is held on Monday, October 6, 2025. The legend has it that a man named Cuoi who hung on to a magical banyan tree as it floated up to the moon. They say that if you look closely at the full moon, you a see the shadow of a man sitting under a tree. Children parade lanterns in the streets the night of Mid-autumn festival to help light the way to earth for Cuoi from the moon..

One street in particular in Hanoi sells items used to decorate for the festival.

One of my favorite shots today. Quin, our guide walking down the street selling items for the Mid-Autumn Festival.

Quin asked if we wanted to walk to the oldest bridge in Hanoi which crosses the Red River and was built from 1898 to 1902 by French architects Dayde and Pille.

Of course we said we wanted to see the bridge. Anything to do with bridges means great photography and amazing ‘leading lines!’

Spanning 1,680 metres across the Red River, the distinctive metal Long Bien Bridge has become an iconic image of the city of Hanoi and links it to the rest of the country.

The trains run on the top of the bridge.

Thr train bridge. It seems pedestrians use it when there are no trains!

Scooters and pedestrians only Where we were walking was not too stable with many loose stones.

A view of the Red River from the Long Bien Bridge

Flooding on the Red River in Hanoi from Typhoon Bualoi which went through the day before we arrived in Vietnam and has left 13 people dead.

The Red River water flow is very much controlled by China to the north of Vietnam with their dam system. In this photo a children’s playground is completely underwater.

The weather was very hot today in Hanoi with a feels like temperature of 37C. We were getting pretty tired at this point after traipsing all over the Old Quarter and surrounding areas so Quin brought us to a sandwhich shop for a ‘bun’ as he called it. I did not want to try any mystery meat so Richard ate half the sandwich and gave the rest to Quin to take home to one of his two boys.

Richard eating half of the mystery meat sandwhich on fresh bread. The sandwhich at 30,000 Vietnamese Dong cost $1.59. I tried the bread and it was very fresh and delicious!

At 2:30pm Quin asked if we wanted to see anything else and since we were pretty hot and tired we said we would like to go back to the hotel. Quin called a ‘Grab’ and within a few minutes our driver arrived and we were comfortable in an air conditioned electric Vinfast vehicle heading back to the LOTTE Hotel.

For our tour today Quin charged us $30US for the food and drinks that we consumed as well as the cost of the GRAB rides. His fee was $50US. I gave him $100US and thanked him very much for everything he showed us today. He also gave us permission to text him tomorrow in case we needed help with anything since we do not meet up with our tour group until Saturday morning. I asked Quin for a recommendation for a good local mosquito repellent and he reached into his backpack and gave me his mosquito repellent.

Local mosquito repellent. Quin says to use it particularly in Cambodia.

Wow! What a first day in Vietnam! I would highly recommend Quin if you are ever in Hanoi and need a guide. He is very busy though and often is with tours all over the country of Vietnam so we were very lucky he happened to be available today to take us around and customize a tour just for us. We learned so much more than I could ever write about and that is the benefit of hiring a good local guide. We went on ‘Tours by Locals’ just for fun this evening and they were chargin $72 USD per person just to do a food tour in Hanoi. We much prefer to do a private tour and have a locally recommended guide wherever we travel if possible.

When we were debriefing our day today and FaceTiming Richard’s mom Shirley and his sister Lizzie in Buckingham, Quebec, Richard said the highlight of his day was sitting on Train Street and watching the trains go by so close we could touch them. He said he would never forget it. Neither will I. Amazing new memories of Hanoi, Vietnam!

We have a free day tomorrow and we plan on grabbing a GRAB and heading back to the Old Quarter to do some exploring on our own, shopping, try another Michelin restaurant for lunch and of course go for Richard’s custom shirt fitting at 4pm. We are tired but happy with our first full day in Vietnam!