Exploring Hanoi, Vietnam! 🇻🇳 | Old Quarter, train street, water puppet show, & MORE!

Over the next couple days we're exploring Hanoi in northern Vietnam. This city is not only the second largest city and capital of the country but also one of the world's most ancient capitals and is known for maintaining a rich Vietnamese culture. In our last video we went on a delicious food tour with a local, trying 10 dishes, but we're giving our stomachs a little bit of a break, well sort of, and are going to be checking out some of the city's top sights Here in Vietnam and Southeast Asia Grab is the popular ride-sharing app and on here they have an option called Grab Bike where you get to ride on the back of a motorbike. And despite being here in Vietnam for four weeks now we have yet to go on a motorbike but we figure we need to get used to it because we have a big motorbike trip next week. He looks a little scared. They really just squeeze into any spot they can find. Thank you. What an experience. This helmet was the hardest part. Yeah. Thanks for getting me here safely. He's probably like, why was this girl GoProing this whole ride? I know, I got you. It was actually a lot of fun. I really enjoyed it. The first couple minutes, you can only hold on behind you and I had the GoPro in one hand and on the railing in the back so I had one hand on that and I was just like gripping on for dear life. I was holding on to the handle for dear life and I also think I was squeezing him too much with my legs. Hanoi's old quarter dates back to the 11th century when after independence from China the emperor moved the capital from Hoa Lu in Ninh Binh to Hanoi. The old quarter is a collection of 36 streets each dedicated to a particular trade and many are still named after what they specialized in. We just popped into a spot called Hidden Gem Coffee and y'all this place is truly a hidden gem. To get to it, you go down a small alley and then up to the third floor and what makes this place extra cool is that it's decorated using recycled items. There are colorful water bottles on the ceiling, water jug lights, an aquarium made out of a tire, and even tire seats. It's so cushy. Yeah, that's nice. We always love when people take what some may consider trash and then turn it into art and this place is just amazing. Got myself another egg coffee because these things are delicious and check out their cup. It's got a broken handle. They're really sticking to their mantra here, not throwing stuff away. I love it. And I got this sticky rice pandan leaf coffee drink and I had pandan for the first time in Singapore and I loved it. Okay, you have the iciness of the kind of slushy part and then you have the soft sticky rice in there. So interesting and so good. It's super fun. It's kind of like boba tea where you have the chewy type yoga balls in here but this time it's sticky rice. I like this. We also got some food because both of these drinks are so sweet and we needed something savory to kind of counteract all the sugar and it's very very good. Similar to Ho Chi Minh City, when the French colonized Vietnam back in the 1800s, they influenced a lot of the architecture here in Hanoi, including the Saint Joseph Cathedral behind us, which was built in 1886 by the French, as well as the Opera House, which was modeled after one of the two Paris Opera Houses at the time to entertain the French officials and wealthy Vietnamese. Beyond the French-inspired buildings, you'll notice that the houses are very narrow here in Hanoi, with an average width of three to four meters. And we read that this was based on a French-imposed tax that was based on the building's width, so they started building narrow houses and while this tax no longer exists, the tradition still continues because of lack of space. And I gotta say, between this and the basketboats, the Vietnamese were creative about getting around French taxes. Quite possibly one of the most popular spots here in Hanoi is Train Street. For years we had seen photos of this narrow hidden street with active railroad tracks running through it, and multiple times a day it would get flooded with tourists trying to catch a glimpse of the train running through. However, one very important thing to know about Train Street is that as of March 2023, the police have prohibited people from entering the most popular area due to safety issues. We hear that some cafe owners can escort you in, but it kind of depends on the time of day and the police presence, so we almost gave up on the whole idea because it just seemed like too much of a hassle, but then we learned of another street further south that isn't blocked off and much easier to visit. And since we didn't want to plan our entire day around the train schedule, we actually went yesterday to check it out, so we're going to rewind to then. There are a handful of cafes along the stretch of the railroad, and we came to Hanoi 1990s, and just look at this spot. We are inches from the railroad tracks. The train comes a handful of times per day. The next one is at 11 40 a.m, so we got here about an hour early just so we could get food and drinks and make sure we got a good front row spot. They just came by to tell us to move the tables away because the train comes literally like right here. The anticipation is killing me. It'll be here any minute. Here it comes, here it comes, here it comes. Oh my gosh. Oh my gosh, my legs are shaking. That was one of the most exhilarating moments of my entire life. Oh my gosh. Oh, my heart is pounding. You could reach out and touch it so easily. Oh my gosh. That was amazing. One of my favorite experiences ever. Hanoi is known as the city of lakes, and these lakes are very important to the locals as they provide a break from the busyness of the city. You'll often find people exercising and enjoying these lakes in the mornings and evenings, and one of the most popular lakes is Hoan Kiem Lake right next to the Old Quarter. Many of the lakes in the city have a legend attached to them. This one is also known as Lake of the Returned Sword because legend has it that a warrior named Le Loi was boating on the lake after returning from 10 years of battle using a magic sword when suddenly a golden turtle appeared and told him that his work is complete and to return his sword back to the sea. The turtle took the sword and dove under the water and returned the sword to the king of the sea. From this legend, the turtle has become a symbol of Vietnamese independence and longevity. But not only is the turtle part of this legend, there have actually been giant turtles that lived in the lake with the largest being 550 pounds. The most recent turtle passed away in 2016 and is now embalmed and located in the That's a big turtle. Over a thousand years ago, water puppetry originated in the rice paddies of the Red River Delta and today you can watch water puppet shows here in Hanoi which depict Vietnamese legends and historical tales with an orchestra, so tonight we're gonna go check out a show. There are several show times per day and you can get your tickets the day of at the box office, but we got our tickets in advance just to make things easier and we also upgraded to the VIP seats that way we can sit closer to the front which was 36 USD for the both of us. That may be a touristy activity but I loved it. I loved everything about that. It was just such a fun and unique experience. I loved the music, the puppet dancing, all the musical instruments were things I've never seen before. The singing was so beautiful. I was just mesmerized the entire time about how they were maneuvering these puppets. It's just, you can see like the sticks under the water but they're like spinning and flapping their hands. It was just unlike anything we've ever really seen before. I was gonna say that too, just never seen anything like that. It was just so different and so amazing to see. It was just cool. It was all in Vietnamese so we didn't really fully understand what was happening. You can't get this translation device but we heard that you didn't necessarily need it. I still feel like I mostly grasped what it was about. They even told the story that we told earlier about the legend right in this lake here of them taking the sword. It was just an incredible experience. I loved it. I just had a smile on my face the entire time. This morning we're visiting the Temple of Literature which was built in 1070 as a place to worship the Chinese philosopher Confucius and in 1076 it became the site of the oldest Vietnamese national university. The temple is surrounded by a red brick wall and consists of five courtyards of different styles and possibly the most recognizable courtyard is the second courtyard which is the Pavilion of Constellation built in 1805. This name means the brightest star in the sky and represents the wish for prosperity and developed education and you'll find a depiction of this courtyard on the 100,000 Vietnamese bank note. There's about 500 children here for a field trip and they're all so cute. They're all waving and saying hi to us and some of them are calling me teacher. It's giving me flashbacks. For those of you that don't know, Adam was a teacher for six years and I don't think hundreds of excited children is the vibe that this temple normally has but it's definitely adding some cuteness to our visit. Next up we're at the site of the Hoa Lo prison also known as Maison Centrale which is a former prison that served a variety of roles over the years and while the prison no longer stands the gatehouse has been turned into a museum that shares its history. Maison Centrale was originally built in 1896 on the land of the Phucon village also referred to as Fiery Furnace as the village was known for its pottery. The prison was one of the largest prisons in the area at this time and During the earlier years of the prison it was used by the French to hold Vietnamese who were opposed to the French colonial rule. Prisoners were given horrible living conditions, chained to the floors and walls and occasionally executed by guillotine. After the French left Vietnam the prison was renamed Hoa Lo and was then used by the North Vietnamese to hold U.S. prisoners of war which were mostly shot down pilots during the Vietnam War. This prison became one of the most notorious POW camps in Vietnam during the war with one of the most well-known prisoners being the late Arizona Senator John McCain. Despite the museum sharing that the prisoners of war were treated well and enjoyed their time here many of the American soldiers who were POWs have shared the opposite and recounted stories of how they were tortured and endured terrible conditions giving it the ironic nickname the Hanoi Hilton. While that definitely wasn't a fun museum to experience we do think it's valuable to visit to learn more about the history of Vietnam and to not end this video on a sad note we're going to do something that always cheers us up, we're going to go get ice cream. We read that ice cream was first brought to Vietnam by the French and was initially a luxury item for the Vietnamese but in the 1950s Kim Chong Tien opened up and has been a Hanoi staple ever since. We haven't had ice cream since our flight to Vietnam almost five weeks ago who are we? So they have four different flavors on a cone as well as a bunch of different flavors on a stick including a durian flavor and if you caught our last video we tried durian for the first time ever in Chiang Mai. I almost threw up but I'm one I'm in the hated camp. And we told ourselves that we would maybe give it another shot but an ice cream form but I think it's too soon for that so we stuck to something that felt a little bit safer. I got the taro ice cream and Adam got the rice like rice flake ice cream. It's like an icy ice cream it's not super creamy but it is really good these are very light so I feel like I could eat three or four or five more scoops. We just might. We might. Yeah this thing is insanely light and if you've seen us eat ice cream before you know that we typically get about like 10 times this size for one serving. Yeah it is really it's like it's a different texture than we're used to. It's super sweet I haven't had a ton of taro products before so I don't really know how to describe it but it's really good. Whoops I told you we were getting more. This place is funny there's two stalls out on the street selling it and then you come in this courtyard and they have at least three stalls selling in here and it's all locals here it seems like this place is popular. Similar to our time in Ho Chi Minh City we loved all the energy and chaos the old historic buildings and of course all the delicious food here in Hanoi. We're gonna be hanging out here for another four days or so just getting some work done and exploring on our own and then we're going to be heading more north for what should be an epic motorbike adventure to end our time here in Vietnam.