We flew Vietnam Airlines from Seoul to Hanoi on the afternoon of November 27, got picked up by a hotel car, and checked into the Grand Hotel du Lac right at the edge of the Old Quarter. It's a smaller boutique hotel, only about a five-minute walk to Hoàn Kiếm Lake, and the location turned out to be perfect for almost everything we wanted to do over the four nights. For our first dinner we walked over to Bún Chả Hương Liên, the famously unfussy spot where Anthony Bourdain took Barack Obama. No reservations, you just show up and order the bún chả combo and a beer; we went a little earlier than the dinner rush and got a table immediately.
The next day we did an Airbnb Experience called Savor Hanoi — Old Quarter Culinary Adventure with a host named Hanh, who messaged me the night before to confirm the meeting point. She walked us through the back streets of the Old Quarter and into a half-dozen stalls and family-run shops — bún chả, phở, bánh cuốn, egg coffee, fresh spring rolls, and a couple of regional dishes I'd never heard of. She was funny, opinionated, and gave us a list of places to try on our own for the rest of the trip. Afterwards we stopped at The Note Coffee, the multi-story café covered floor-to-ceiling in handwritten post-its, and then walked over to the Temple of Literature, Vietnam's first university, which is genuinely beautiful.
Day three we did a full-day private tour out to Ninh Binh with a company called Authentic Ninh Binh — I had booked it on WhatsApp with their sales manager Ms. Phuong (who also goes by Lina) and paid a $50 deposit online to lock it in. It is about a two-hour drive each way, and the day included a small sampan rowboat through the karst caves at Tam Coc, a hike up Mua Cave for the panoramic view, and a stop at the Bich Dong pagoda complex. Worth every minute. That night we had dinner at Duong's Restaurant, a foodie-favorite a few blocks from the hotel that Jessica had locked down by email.
Our last full day in Hanoi we did a second Airbnb Experience: Under the Surface — Untold War Stories of Hanoi, hosted by a man named Quang. He picked us up near a secondary school in the Hai Bà Trưng district and walked us through pieces of the city most tourists never see, including some sites tied directly to the American war. He was thoughtful and not at all preachy about it; we both left with a much better feel for modern Vietnamese history. From there we walked through the Old Quarter to St. Joseph's Cathedral and then Hoa Lo Prison, the so-called Hanoi Hilton, which is a heavy but necessary stop. We ended with dinner at Home Hanoi, a converted French-colonial villa with traditional Vietnamese cooking — Jessica had booked the reservation through their online form.
If you're going, stay near Hoàn Kiếm Lake, do the food tour with Hanh on your first full day so you have a roadmap for everything else, and don't skip Ninh Binh — Hanoi is great but Ninh Binh is the thing you'll keep talking about when you get home.