Cha Ca La Vong is a restaurant in Hanoi famous for its grilled fish (Cha Ca) dish which was created some 130 years ago. The restaurant/dish is so famous that the street is named after it, and it’s featured in almost every single Hanoi’s travel guide.
There’s one problem though, as some other restaurants are riding on its fame with similar name and menu to take advantage of naive foreign travellers, and I was one of the fallen prey of the conspiracy during my Hanoi trip in July 2008…
Quán Ăn Ngon is a popular restaurant in Hanoi (18, Phan Boi Chau Street), Vietnam, which offers a variety of traditional Vietnamese dishes and street food.
The restaurant was quite cozy, and the food decent. Not my favourite Hanoi restaurant, but if you can only have one meal in the city… this is probably the place you want to be because of the great varieties.
Water puppet show (múa rối nước) is a famous traditional Vietnamese art with more than 800 years of history; it’s a unique heritage from the Red River (Sông Hồng) region in northern Vietnam.
The water puppet shows are predominantly in Vietnamese (language) and showcase the folklores and legends in Vietnam. Thang Long Water Puppetry Theatre near Hoan Kiem Lake in Hanoi is probably the most famous place to watch the show.
I was lucky to get a seat during my Hanoi tour in July 2008, as there was only a few seats left when I purchased the ticket. It’s advisable for future visitors to get the tickets early in the day before going to the show in the afternoon/evening.
The Old Quarter, as its name indicates, is one of the oldest areas in Hanoi. The place is famous for its streets that are packed with century-old shop-houses specialising in a particular trade… such as shoes, bags, toys, medicines, metals and bamboos etc. The speciality of each street is reflected by the road names.
The Old Quarter is also called the 36 Streets… probably the number of streets when the French started to rebuild the area in the 19th century.
These days there are probably more than 40 streets in Old Quarter; most of the streets are quite short and could be easily navigated on foot… but I was a bit lazy to walk as the summer heat was killing me. I decided to try the cyclo ride instead, which cost me about US$4 for an hour of touring around the area…
Ngoc Son Temple (Đền Ngọc Sơn), or Temple of the Jade Mound, is located on a small islet at Hoan Kiem Lake in the City of Hanoi. The temple was founded in the 14th century but most of its current structures were built in the 18th century.
Ngoc Son Temple was built to commemorate a few Chinese and Vietnamese legends, including famous Vietnamese General Trần Hưng Đạo who twice led the Vietnamese troops to fence off the mighty Yuan invaders in the 13th century.
Sharing a few photos of the temple below, taken during my Hanoi trip in July 2008. It’s a small temple, but pretty nostalgic with a serene environment…
First day in Hanoi, intended to visit Hoan Kiem Lake after checking in at my hotel… the journey was supposed to take 15 minutes of walking, but somehow took me more than an hour to reach there due to some poor map reading lol.
The time was not completely wasted though; passed by some of these landmarks in Hoan Kiem District that I probably won’t discover if I hadn’t lost my direction…
Hoan Kiem Lake (Hồ Hoàn Kiếm), or Lake of Returned/Restored Sword, is located at the historical centre of Hanoi and is a popular hangout place for locals. The lake is not so much of a tourist spot itself, but there’s plenty of other sites around the area, thus making it an important landmark of the city.
