Things to do in Hanoi & Ha Long Bay

Hanoi is Vietnam's capital and its most atmospheric city: the Old Quarter's narrow streets are each named after the goods once sold there, scooters stream around Hoan Kiem Lake, and the evening is for street-side pho, egg coffee and a water puppet show, a folk art that began in the rice paddies of the Red River delta.

Two of the country's best-known landscapes are a day trip away. Ha Long Bay, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, scatters around two thousand limestone islands across the Gulf of Tonkin, and Ninh Binh, often called Ha Long Bay on land, has rowing boats gliding between rice fields and karst towers at Tam Coc and Trang An.