Great report mr. & ms. go! I was in Hanoi at the beginning of March and stayed at the Elegance Diamond...I can only echo your comments about the Elegance hotel chain...they are GREAT!

I too had lunch (there were 4 of us) at Dac Kim and for $12 (total!) it was a fantastic experience...climbing the stairs to the 3rd floor was not for the faint of heart, but the food was oh, so worth it!

I believe the hotpot place you mentioned is Highway 4, we went there for dinner one night and had the snakefish hotpot, it was a fun experience, but the food wasn't stellar, maybe it was the cooks (us!) :-) However, the springrolls there were terrific!

Now I need to check out your photos. I've been home 4 weeks and have just sorted through all mine (2400...but I was traveling for 3 weeks, Vietnam, Cambodia & Thailand). After reading your trip great trip report, I'm reluctant to write one of my own! :-D

Thanks, Clifton and LowCountryIslander. LCI, looking forward to your trip report and photos!

I'm going very slowly in the photo department (work and taxes have something to do with that, I guess). But in case anyone is hungry, here are a few bun cha photos from Dac Kim. I'll eventually add some more to this (and other) albums):

http://onelittleworld.zenfolio.com/p578530885

Fascinating report - really readable and lots of useful links etc. Looking forward to more! Great that you have included a photo of the outside of a restaurant - must do that myself.

Presume you were there the very end of March / early April. Do you know if it warms up quickly during April?

CarrieAnn... I would say so, especially since the predicted high temp for this Saturday is 90 degrees (F)!

Incidentally, ms_go has posted a mini trip report about the 12-hour layover we spent in Seoul on the way back home from Hanoi. You can read it here:
http://www.fodors.com/community/asia...cn-layover.cfm

Our Seoul photos can be seen here:
http://onelittleworld.zenfolio.com/p132604610

We felt it made sense to post that TR as a separate thread with a 'Korea' tag.

Lovely pictures of Seoul. We had planned on a day in Seoul several years ago when going to Thailand, but realized before we left that unlike the steamy temps in Thailand, it would be the middle of Korea's winter. We nixed that idea when considering the extra clothing that would be necessary. After seeing your pictures I realize we'll have to add this in another time.

Did you have the Global Entry to reneter the US? If so, how was it? I am wondering whether to get it myself.

HappyTrvlr, we do have Global Entry. It was very quick at SFO; we were each through in about a minute (there were two machines). To be honest, it didn't save us that much this time around, as we got off the plane quickly and the lines were just starting to form at the immigration booths when we got there. But, I can think of plenty of occasions when it would have saved us a lot of time (this was our first time using it)--particularly at ORD, which is where we usually enter.

If you live in proximity to one of the CBP offices, it is pretty easy to do. I registered online, got the notice the next day to schedule my appointment, and then went in a week later for the interview/fingerprinting (could have done it sooner but was waiting for a day when Allie was off school so that she could complete it at the same time).

It took me a while to get to this and then a while to catch up to you. But I'm so glad I did. Fantastic report! You two are very good at this! Not only did I really enjoy it, I learned a lot. Thanks so much for sharing this experience.

Thanks CAPH52, glad you enjoyed it!

In the interest of wrapping this up, here is a link with some of our many, many photos from Hanoi. I'm still working on this as I get the chance (and I haven't even downloaded photos from Allie's camera or either of our iPhones yet), so it may evolve a bit:
http://onelittleworld.zenfolio.com/p210707711

Thanks again for shairing your trip..It has been very very helpful to me as I plan our time in Hanoi.Photos are terrific too!

Loved the pix (especially as a "remembrance" of our recent trip".

Take a peek at this one -- it really shows the wiring issue --

https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/phot...eat=directlink

Also, did you happen to note the price of tickets for the Backstreet Boys concert? They went to over $100USD per ticket. Somehow, I don't think they were catering to the local population!

THAT’S ABOUT IT
I’d like to put a coda on this report by summarizing our impressions of the place, and about the all-too-brief time we spent here.

If you’ve never been to this part of the world, it really is hard to put into words what you can expect. And whatever it is that you do expect already… you’re probably way off. I doubt that our extensive album of photos is going to remedy that because, by definition, still images are the very antithesis of what Hanoi is about. This town is its own peculiar form of perpetual motion, an endless ballet of kinetic flux.

We’ve already told you about the sites, the food, the excursions, the accommodations and the logistics of our trip. But we haven’t really talked about the people… and they might be the most compelling reason to visit. So many of the people we met in North Vietnam were truly warm, helpful, friendly and easygoing. And I have to say it: meeting them made me feel badly about what happened between our two nations 40-50 years ago. Even if it doesn’t matter much to them anymore.

I started this report by saying that I had almost named it “What Would Anthony Bourdain Do?” In point of fact, I actually said that phrase out loud more than once during our trip, and it seemed fitting. See, this isn’t necessarily a place for relaxing in the lap of luxury, or for lolling in the sun & sand, or for immersing yourself in highbrow culture (although you could if you chose to). It really is a place meant for exploring, and you really never know what’s around the next corner. An Anthony Bourdain sort of place. It’s the kind of place that you dive into and drink in as much experience as you can, and where satisfying your appetite for new flavors only leaves you hungry for more.

But for all that motion and energy going on in Hanoi… it’s not really going anywhere. So there’s always time to pause and reflect, to kick back in a public park and people-watch, to grab a cold one and soak it all in before rejoining the dance.

So what would Tony Bourdain do? He’d order another tall Bia Ha Noi and a plate of nem, and chill his (bleep) out. That’s what he’d do.

AND LASTLY…
Our many thanks to those who have gone before us and posted their experiences here on this forum and elsewhere. Our trip would have been a far lesser experience without this valuable information, and we are genuinely grateful. I’ve said it many times before, but we can never really pay back the debt of thanks we owe to the men and women who have written so extensively and so well about this part of the world. So instead of paying them all back, the best we can do is “pay it forward” by posting our own report and our photos, and by answering your questions as best we can. And I hope we have done just that.

And finally, thanks to each of you for your kind words in this thread. We genuinely appreciate it.

Next stop... Tuscany in autumn.

Bravo mr. & ms. go! You have so eloquantly put into words my same thoughts about Hanoi...this trip report is a treasure! Thank you for taking the time to write and post it here on Fodors.

What a nice ending to a great report!

I really enjoyed your report! It brought back so much of my experience of Hanoi!

Thanks for contributing a wonderful report. Hanoi does indeed rock!

What more can I say...you did a fabulous job reporting back to us. Thanks.

Getting to come back and catch up on the rest of the report has been a treat - as was the Seoul report as well. Thanks to both of you for doing such a great job.

btw, I think what Anthony Bourdain did was move there for awhile!

Clifton: <i>I think what Anthony Bourdain did was move there for awhile!</i>

I actually caught that episode of No Reservations on the flight back home. It's a good one. (I gotta say, the on-demand entertainment systems in biz class on newer UA 747s are a real treat... perfect for those of us who can't sleep.)

Anyway, thanks again for your kind words. And be sure to check out our Hanoi & Seoul photos if you haven't already.

Very nice report. I am finally going to be visiting Viet Nam for two weeks next January and it will be quite helpful. I was last there 43 years ago, but obviously not in the north. While the circumstances were quite different, I do remember it being a beautiful country. Thanks again.