The Old Quarter of Hanoi

If you go to TripAdvisor or any tourist guidebook about Hanoi, you'll see that the Old Quarter is the #1 attraction.  And it isn't hard to see why.  The Old Quarter is a collection of about 35 streets surrounding the beautiful Hoan Kiem lake in Hanoi.

The Old Quarter has 2,000 years of history and some call it "the soul of the city".  Today each of the streets is filled with different markets and shops and small eating places.  It is just crammed full of interesting stuff, usually centered around one item for sale -- the shoe street, the men's clothing street, the book street, the sewing street, the bamboo street, etc.  Remarkably there seems to be very few empty storefronts -- the economy is booming in the Old Quarter.

But the Old Quarter is a magnet for tourists, and those eager to sell to tourists.  Our first visit to the Old Quarter was a little bit of a shock. It was in our first week and we had spent our time in Vietnam around people who were very friendly and who were charging us reasonable prices. But when we got off the #9 bus at the fountain in the Old Quarter, the assault began.  We're clearly American tourists ina sea of Vietnamense people.  We're easy to pick out.  We were immediately approached by a woman aggressively selling a map of Hanoi. It was less than a dollar, and I needed a map anyway, so I bought the map. No big deal. We cross the street, and were approached by another woman trying to sell us donuts. She took a donut and put it in Finn's hand, making us think it was a sample. Before I knew it, each of the kids had a donut and we had a bag six more donuts, and she was charging us 150,000 VND. Now that's only about seven dollars, but I didn't want the donuts in the first place!

Stuff like that happens in every tourist trap around the world, but it was the first time it happened to us in Hanoi. And it really wasn't that bad, especially since the donuts were delicious.  But on more than one occasion, we were approached by street vendors trying to sell us hats and fruit and pictures.  In the picture below we were talking to a woman, and very quickly she had a non la and a carrying pole on Ellie and wanted to sell us things.  We had become smarter by then, so politely but firmly said no:

After that, we got into the spirit of things and realized that everything is negotiable in the Old Quarter. In fact, it is become a place where we do shopping when we know we can negotiate and get a good deal. So far we've purchased three of our favorite touristy T-shirts for less than $5, a hat for Finn for about $3, two North Face bags for $10, and two pairs of beats headphones that Noah and Carter are excited about, also for $10.

And while the shops and food of the Old Quarter are fun, one of my favorite places there is the fountain right by the lake where the bus lets us off.  It is fun to go into one of the cafes and just watch the crazy traffic and the people go by: