Two Days in Hanoi || Vietnam Travel Vlog #1

The north of Vietnam is full of natural beauty and epic adventures, and in the center of it all is the country's capital, Hanoi. The Old Quarter is a labyrinth of narrow streets and alleyways buzzing with millions of scooters and street vendors. One of the best places in the world for street photography and people-watching, from the city's many street-side cafes. Wandering these vibrant streets also leads you to many hidden treasures with exotic old It's a must-visit destination on your way to the wonders of the north, and here's how it went. Good morning, guys, and welcome to Hanoi, Vietnam. This is the capital city and the second-largest city here in Vietnam, and it's home to about 8.5 million people, and Hanoi makes a great launching point for a lot of the exploration up to some of the beautiful nature of northern Vietnam, going up to Sa Pa, Ninh Binh, and Halong Bay. And that's my plan in a couple days, to head out to some of the exotic beauty of northern Vietnam. But I have a couple days hanging out here in Hanoi, making some plans for that, so I wanted to take you guys around and show you a little bit of this capital city. And yeah, I'm really excited, we're going to have two days here. So I'm staying in the Old Quarter, and that's where most of the hotels and hostels are, and it's a really cool area. We'll walk around it a little bit, but it's just a little bit grungier, it's this labyrinth of little streets. You have these shops spilling out, a lot of coffee shops, a lot of street-side pho places, and it's a really great place for street photography, you'll see a lot of local vendors with the traditional Vietnamese hats on, selling different foods and different items along the street here. And yeah, it just has a really strong energy to it. So today we'll mostly be checking out the Hanoi Old Quarter. But first, I want to take you guys to the edge of the Old Quarter, and one of the most famous things to do here is check out Hanoi Train Street, which is this little street, has some really cool street art, and it's right on the train tracks. So there's a schedule, and a couple times a day, the train will just go right through all of these cafes and restaurants. So it's right on the edge of the Old Quarter, so let's head over there and check out Hanoi Train Street. So I've just come to Train Street, and I came last night, and last night you just have all of these lanterns that are glowing along the train street here, and it's a lot more lively, but I heard it can also be super busy and hard to get a spot. And the trains seem to be super inconsistent. There's a little bit of a schedule that they follow, but the train can come any time within like an hour time span, so make sure you come here and give yourself some time. There's just lots of these cool cafes, there's lots of street art, and Chinese lanterns up and down these streets. So really cool place. I think I'm going to grab just a coffee here. They say the train is coming at 8.49, so that's in about half an hour. So I've just found a little coffee spot here, and there's tons of them up and down. And again, at night, this place is just packed with people, so coming in the morning, it's a lot more quiet, and hopefully the train will be coming in about 20 minutes, so we'll just sip some coffee, and then we'll watch the train go by. I think the train is coming. They've shoved us in a little bit here so that we don't get hit, and it should be coming soon. Alright guys, so that was actually quite terrifying, especially being on the curve there, because the train was coming right towards me, and I was probably less than a foot from this train that was just zooming right by my face, and so if I just like even turned my legs, I probably would have gotten hit by it. But very, yeah, cool experience, and again, I think coming in the morning here, there's still not a lot of people, so if you come at night, you're just going to be fighting for that shot with everyone's phones out, but yeah, it was nice and calm this morning, and yeah, cool to see I'll probably come back and do this again just for fun, because it's a unique experience to be sitting right here on these trains. So anyways, this train cafe street is right on the edge of the Old Quarter of Hanoi, so let's kind of head into the Old Quarter, wander around. You just have this labyrinth of streets, lots of really cool shops, street side cafes, and there'll be some cool temples and a lake that we'll check out, so yeah, let's walk around and just enjoy the Old Quarter. Right across from the train street here, we're entering into the Hanoi Old Quarter, and the Old Quarter consists of about 36 different streets, and when the capital was moved from Ninh Binh to Hanoi in the 17th century, a lot of craft guilds came here, and each guild got their own street, so historically, each street kind of specialized in one sort of trade, so you still have a little bit of that here today, where there'll be like a lamp street, or a scooter street, or a market street, and so it's really just a cool place to walk around. You have a little bit of this French colonial architecture, but then a lot of just kind of these grungy old buildings, and to be honest, it's not necessarily the best place for like sightseeing necessarily, but it's a great place to just come and see the street life. Again, you'll get a lot of these street vendors, you'll see a lot of people in their traditional Vietnamese hats walking around, selling different things on their shoulders, so yeah, really cool place to just kind of walk around, so we're just going to kind of cruise through the Hanoi Old Quarter here, stopping at a few significant places, and one of the main places is the Hoan Kiem Lake, so let's head in the direction of that. You're just walking through the Old Town, which is so fun, again, such a cool vibe, there's so much energy going on, so many scooters, it's really terrifying crossing the streets, because it's just kind of chaos on some of the roads here, but right in the middle, there's this little courtyard, and there's the St. Joseph's Cathedral right behind me, which is this French Gothic architecture built in 1884, when Vietnam was occupied by the French for a little bit, and it almost feels like this small European square here, we just have a bunch of nice cafes surrounding this plaza, so great place to get a coffee, and then this really cool Gothic Cathedral here, and it's the oldest church in Hanoi. As I just realized, around the side of the cathedral here, you can actually enter and go inside, so let's check out the inside of the cathedral real quick. So that was St. Joseph's Cathedral, very dark inside, there were some really colorful stained glass windows, and then the altar had some really nice colors, some nice statues and figures to it, so very interesting to see a church here in Vietnam, and again, one of the oldest ones in the country. So, let's keep heading over to Hoan Kiem Lake, it's just about two blocks from here, and it's a very iconic lake, kind of in the center of the Hanoi Old Quarter. I've just made it to Hoan Kiem Lake, which is this lake right in the edge of the Old Quarter of Hanoi, and it's about a quarter mile long, to walk around the whole lake will be about half a mile, and there's a Confucian temple that's kind of on an island in the middle, and there's like a bridge that you can take over to it, so we'll go there in a little bit, but there's also the Turtle Tower, which is one of the icons of Hanoi, like you'll see in a lot of pictures, and it's just a little pagoda temple that's on an island as well, that's not accessible in the middle of the lake here. So, and then around the park here, you have just these nice gardens, so just a nice, tranquil little spot in the heart of the hectic Old Quarter of Hanoi. So, yeah, let's just go for a little walk around the lake, and then we'll end up on the northern side to check out the Confucian temple. I've just paid 50,000 dong, or about 2 US dollars, and I'm gonna head over the little bridge here, into the middle of the Hoan Kiem Lake, and check out the temple. So that was the Ngoc Son Temple. Unfortunately, you couldn't film too much inside, and I wish I could, because it was completely different than most temples I've seen. It was a Confucius Taoist temple, so it had a similar, like, shrine feel to a lot of the Buddhist temples, but a very different vibe and look to it. But yeah, very interesting to check out the inside, and then cool that you're just out on this island, and you just get some views of the historic Hanoi Old Quarter here. So, anyways, let's head back over the red bridge here, and just wander around the Old Quarter, and see what else we can find. I might look for some street food soon, and there's some other little temples we can check out. This has been super fun, just wandering through the Old Quarter here. Again, so many colorful, grungy buildings, and just the chaos of traffic. But I've come to Beer Street, and all through the Old Town, you have these old little ladies like selling pho, which is a rice noodle dish, very popular Vietnamese food. And they sell them on these little plastic tables on the street, so I'm gonna see if I can get some street pho here. Very good. It's always fun eating in Vietnam, and pho, it's just... It's so cold here, actually, so it's nice to get a nice warm soup. So, anyways, let's keep wandering around the Hanoi Old Quarter. There's tons of little temples you can check out, but there's another one called Kim Ngon, which is kind of in the center of the Old Quarter here, that I've heard is worth checking out. So, let's wander around, and see if we can find that temple. So, I've just come off the busy streets of the Hanoi Old District, and entered the Kim Ngon communal house. And it's just this little open courtyard here, and this house was built in the 15th century, so it'll give us just a little glimpse into some of the older homes here in the Hanoi Old Center. And then, a lot of these have been turned into old shrines for the people that lived here, and set up some of the trading guilds that were so common here in the Old Quarter of Hanoi. So, let's head in, check out this old architecture, the shrine, and some of the artwork in one of these old communal homes in the Hanoi Old District. Pretty cool to get a glimpse into some of the old historic communal homes here in the Old Quarter of Hanoi, and get a look at the shrine, since I couldn't show you guys the other shrines. So, anyways, back on the streets of Old Hanoi here, and I want to head to one of the eastern gates of the Old Quarter, but I've noticed there's a lot of people on these rickshaw push bikes that these old men are pedaling you around, so I think that'd be a cool way to get another view and another tour of the Old Quarter of Hanoi. So, let's see if we can get one of these bike rickshaws and go for a little tour around the Old Town. So, I found some guy for about $3 or $4, he'll give me a small little tour here, and then eventually we'll head to the eastern gate. So, yeah, let's jump on the rickshaw and get a little bike tour around the Old Town. So, you can do much longer bike tours where he takes you all around the city to a bunch of different historic sites, but I just kind of used it as a taxi to get me across the Old Town here, and a really cool way to see the Old Town, again, nice to get off the feet a little bit after walking all day. So, he's taken me all the way to the eastern side of the Old Quarter here, to the eastern gate, which is one of the remaining gates of the old walled city of Hanoi, and so it's kind of cool just to see this really old architecture, I think it was built in the mid-1700s, so it's one of just more the older architecture styles of Hanoi here, and just having that gate, watching all the scooters go through, really cool to see. So, we're actually leaving the Old Quarter a little bit here, going through the gate, and just across the street from here is one of the largest mosaics in the world, and it's just kind of this mosaic that goes along the highway for a ways, and so, yeah, let's head across the highway here and just check out that mosaic wall, and it'll eventually take us to a famous train bridge just outside of the Old Quarter. So, I have just crossed over the highway, so it's kind of loud, I'm right on the highway here, but right next to the highway is the world's longest ceramic mosaic. For over 6 kilometers, there's just this beautiful artwork that's made up of millions and millions of just these small ceramic tiles, and kind of a strange place, because it's just on the highway, so it's kind of hard to enjoy this, because it's so, like, loud, but very cool, very colorful, kind of fun to check out, again, you just have to be careful, because you're like, right on the road here, so, anyways, walking along the highway here, just north of the Old Town, probably about a quarter mile, we'll make it to Long Bien Bridge. I have just walked along that mosaic wall for maybe like a quarter, half a mile there, and it's just, it's actually really impressive that that goes on for 6 kilometers, it's just so detailed, there's so many pictures and stories in the mosaic, and it's really colorful, but I've made it to the Long Bien Bridge, which is a very historic and another iconic piece of architecture here in Hanoi, it was built by the French in the late 1900s, and it was the first bridge to span the Red River, so very critical in just connecting these parts of northern Vietnam, and it was also one of, like, the most heavily targeted bridges that was bombed during the Vietnam War, and so it was constantly being bombed, but they were constantly repairing it, so it has a lot of war history as well, and it just has this cantilever, truss kind of look to it, there's a train track that goes across, but also a lot of scooters are going over this bridge as well, so, I think we can walk up on the bridge and just check it out, get a slightly closer look at it, so let's head over there and check out this historic bridge in Hanoi. So I've just come out, maybe like a third of the way across the Long Bien Bridge, it's almost a mile long to the other side, so it's actually a very very long bridge, which makes it that much more impressive, and it just has these rusty old trusses, and it, honestly, it doesn't look like the most secure bridge, but they only have scooters going over, there is a train track, so trains will go over this bridge, so yeah, but we are kind of over the river here, it looks very swampy here, we're getting just a unique perspective looking back on the city of Hanoi a little bit, and I think that's about it for today, I think I'm going to go back to the Old Quarter for the rest of the afternoon, grab a coffee, just enjoy walking around some of those old streets and just seeing the life and liveliness of the Old Quarter of Hanoi, and then tomorrow, we're going to go over to the west side of the city, there's the Citadel, there's a mausoleum, there's another big lake and a pagoda that we can check out, so tomorrow, we'll go and explore a little bit outside of the Old Quarter of Hanoi, but today was awesome, again, not the most like picturesque or sightseeing place, but just such a cool vibe and energy in the Old Quarter of Hanoi, just watching life go by here in Vietnam, and yeah, just really fun to photograph the street life and all that, so yeah, but tomorrow will be a little bit more of the sightseeing aspect where we see some more monuments and some more interesting things, so yeah, I'll see you guys tomorrow morning when we check out the rest of the Hanoi. Good morning guys, it's my second day showing you guys around the city of Hanoi here, and yesterday, we explored most of the Old Quarter, and again, the Old Quarter, just a really fun place to wander around, get lost in these winding back alleys and streets, but today, we're going to keep exploring a little bit outside the Old Quarter, we're going to head to just the western part, there's like an old citadel, there's the Temple of Literature, there's a mausoleum, a pagoda, so let's start by heading west, and I'm going to start by heading to the Temple of Literature, so yeah, let's head there. Guys, I've just walked about 20-25 minutes to the west and south of the Old Town here, and I'm at the Temple of Literature, and it's this really old complex built in about 1070, and it was part of the Imperial Academy, one of Vietnam's oldest university and learning institutions here, so right as we enter, there's this little courtyard, we have this beautiful archway that'll lead us through into the Temple of Literature, so let's head in. Just walked through the first two courtyards there, and you have these beautiful trees, amazing archways, nice gardens, and then you come to the third courtyard here, and this is supposed to be one of the courtyards that has a lot of historic relics, and all around the edge here, you have these massive, they almost look like tombstones, I honestly don't know what they are, but they're on turtles' backs, and then you have the pool of heavenly well-being is in the middle, and you just get a little bit of these reflections of these amazing gates that just surround the third courtyard here, and I think this is right in the middle of the complex, but there's still a lot more to see, we're just kind of entering it here, so let's keep checking out more of the courtyards. I've just entered the next courtyard here, and there's actually a bit of a graduation ceremony going on, so there's a bunch of kids here, they're doing some ceremonies and ringing some bells, doing some drums, but we're right at the Hall of Ceremonies, which you can go in and see a little bit of the Temple of Confucius aspect of here, so yeah, let's head in the temple and check it out. Very interesting to see that ceremony going on, and to see a little bit of the inside of a Confucius temple, I don't see those very often, so just to see a little bit of the altars and shrines that are involved with that, very interesting. So there's one more courtyard, the fifth and final courtyard, and I think there's another temple, some cool architecture, so let's head over there and check out the last courtyard of the Temple of Literature here. This was the fifth and final courtyard of the Temple of Literature here, and in this last place, it's a two-story building, almost has a log cabin kind of feel, and then there are a lot of altars and shrines to a lot of the influential teachers and founders of this university, and yeah, very interesting, very beautiful architecture, interesting shrines, beautiful gardens and courtyards to walk around, and yeah, just cool to see this ancient university here in the heart of Hanoi. So yeah, that's about it for the Temple of Literature. Not too far from here, just a block or two, is one of the old citadels of Hanoi, so we're just gonna walk a couple blocks and check out the citadel. Not too far from the Temple of Literature that we just explored is the citadel Phong Long, and Phong Long is one of the ancient capitals of the Vietnam region, and the citadel here and the complex is over a thousand years old, built in 1010 AD, and it's been designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and it was almost destroyed during French colonialism in the late 1800s when they wanted to build modern Hanoi. So yeah, let's head in and check out some of this ancient architecture here in the heart of Hanoi, and some of the ruins of the old Phong Long dynasty. Just come up the main gate of the citadel here, and you're just about two or three stories up above the city. There's a lot of trees around, so you're not getting great views, but you can see Hanoi tower over there, you're looking down on other parts of the citadel, we have a big Vietnamese flag here, you can see the assembly hall, some of the other government buildings, and then there's a small little shrine in here. So yeah, and then just these beautiful like rustic yellow color to a lot of the architecture here in the citadel. So yeah, let's head back down, and there's a lot more to see and wander through the citadel, so let's explore. So that was the citadel Phong Long, there's honestly not too much to see, unfortunately a lot of the old buildings were destroyed, but you can see a couple of the gates, and I just didn't realize Hanoi had this really cool yellow color scheme to it, and I kind of wish this like grungy yellow appeared more in the old quarter, because it's just very cool, very textured, very fun to photograph. But as you're walking around here, there are a couple buildings, there's actually a cafe, there's a few museums that have some cool old maps showing you how the citadel used to be, and how the city has kind of developed and progressed over the last thousand years, and there is some cool architecture to see. So from here, I'm going to leave out the western gate, and there's a lot more administrative and governmental buildings kind of in this part of town, that we'll kind of walk through, but then there's the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum, which is another pilgrimage site for the former leader of Vietnam. So yeah, let's kind of wander through this part of town, and we'll check out the mausoleum. I've just walked a couple blocks here, and I'm right in front of the presidential palace, which is this bright yellow building, and then right in front of this, we have the Ba Dinh Square, and also the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum. So it's this big open square, and it's a very sacred site, it's where they do a lot of political ceremonies and parades, and honor the leader, Ho Chi Minh, which was a very influential, powerful figure in Vietnam. So we have to go through some security here, but then we'll go and check out the mausoleum a bit. Now I'm in Ba Dinh Square, which is just this dramatically wide open space. We have this really wide piece of pavement here, we have all of this, these like little grass squares, and again, we're surrounded by some of the government buildings. And then right in the center of the Ba Dinh Square, we have the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum. And Ho Chi Minh was one of the revolutionaries and freedom fighters for the Vietnamese independence movement in the 1940s, and then was one of the ones who set up the current Vietnamese government ruling system, and so he's known as just like a national hero, a lot of people will call him Uncle Ho. And so his mausoleum here, when he passed away in 1966, he actually wished for his body to be cremated and his ashes distributed around Vietnam, but instead, people just loved him and revered him so much that they embalmed his body, and it's sitting in the mausoleum here. And you can go in, there's like really weird viewing hours, and you have to give up your phone and electronics, and like you can't have anything because it's such a sacred site, so you're not allowed to go in and take any photos or videos. And again, it's closed right now, has really weird opening hours, and I've heard that there's just really massive lines when it is open to go in there and see Uncle Ho, but if you wanted to see his embalmed body, you could go in there and check that out. So yeah, very interesting, dramatic place here, right in the middle of Hanoi. And then there's also the Ho Chi Minh Museum, and then the One Pillar Pagoda here. So yeah, let's just walk around. I'll show you guys the outside of the mausoleum, the outside of the museum, a couple of things you can do here in Ba Dinh Square. So that was pretty much Ba Dinh Square. There's not a ton of stuff to do. There is the Ho Chi Minh Museum behind me, which you could go into and learn a little bit more about the Vietnamese history. And then there was the One Pillar Pagoda, which just had a little bit more of a heritage feel to it. I think that pagoda is probably about 1,000 years old as well. And it was interesting just the contrast of this really brutalist Soviet architecture of the museum and the mausoleum in Big Open Square, and then you just have this cute little tucked away pagoda that just has really delicate architecture to it, and it's very nature and vibrant and organic. And so interesting to have the contrast of those two things here. There's one more thing I want to show you guys in Hanoi, and just about half a mile to a mile north of here is West Lake, which is this really massive lake kind of on the northern edge of town. And there's a Buddhist pagoda that towers above the lake. So yeah, let's head that way and check out the pagoda. About half a mile north of the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum complex, we've come to West Lake, which is one of the largest lakes within a capital city in the world. And it's almost two and a half miles long, and you have a bunch of these beautiful cafes and coffee shops all along here. And then in the middle, you have this small little island with a Buddhist pagoda that's kind of like towering a little bit above the lake. So let's head over and check out this pagoda. I've just crossed the little bridge to the island that has the Tran Quoc Pagoda. And this is the oldest Buddhist shrine in Hanoi, and it's over 1,500 years old, built in about the 600 AD. And you have this 160-foot-tall pagoda that has 11 different shrines building up into this really tall pagoda here. And around each of the pagodas, you have these different little Buddhas. And then throughout the little island here, you have a couple other little temples and other little Buddhist shrines. And again, you're just right on the West Lake here, so from the edge, you're just looking out over the city and see a little bit of the Hanoi skyline on the water. So yeah, let's walk around the Tran Quoc Pagoda a little bit here, check it out, check out some of the shrines, and yeah, just enjoy this really tall pagoda. That was the Tran Quoc Pagoda on the West Lake here. To be honest, the pagoda was a little bit smaller than I pictured. I thought it would be like this massive thing that towers over, but I mean, it's still like 150 meters, but not as big as I pictured it from the pictures. But yeah, very cool. And then around, you just have a bunch of old shrines, and again, the pagoda complex is 1,500 years old, and some of those statues just seemed absolutely ancient. So very cool to see that, cool to see the little island here. And with that, that's about the last thing that I wanted to show you guys on a little two-day tour around Hanoi. Of course, there's so much more you could see and do, and even being here on West Lake, just seeing how much this city sprawls. And I'm sure there's like more modern parts of the city we could explore, and there's so many other temples, even through the old town. And then even walking through here from the Ho Chi Minh Memorial, we passed a couple other little temples. But yeah, very cool to just get an inside look into the capital of Vietnam here. The next couple of days, we're going to be heading out of the city and exploring a little bit more of the northern region of Vietnam. We'll be heading to Sa Pa, we'll Ninh Binh, the old capital of Vietnam, and then we'll be going to Ha Long Bay, some beautiful island right along the water there. So yeah, looking forward to exploring a little bit more of the northern part of this country, but cool to just like start with a little urban exploration here in the capital city. So yeah, thanks for joining me, hopefully this helps you plan your trip around Hanoi and gives you some ideas of some things you can see and do in the capital city. So yeah, we'll see you guys next time when we head up to Sa Pa.