The Old Quarter

Thirty-six streets, each one a trade

Hàng means merchandise, and for six hundred years the streets north of the lake were organised by what was made and sold on them. Hàng Bạc was the silversmiths, Hàng Gai the silk, Hàng Thiếc the tinsmiths, Hàng Mã the paper offerings burned for the dead, Hàng Chiếu the mats, Hàng Đường the sugar.

Plenty have changed hands. Enough have not that the pattern is still obvious — walk Hàng Thiếc and you will hear it before you read the sign, and Hàng Mã in the weeks before a festival is one of the most extraordinary streets in Asia.

The tube houses

The buildings are two or three metres wide and thirty or forty deep, because for a long stretch of history frontage was what was taxed. Behind the shop is a light well, then a workshop, then a courtyard, then the family. The restored merchant's house at 87 Mã Mây is open with a small admission and is the easiest way to see the whole depth of one.

How to walk it

⭐ Do not navigate. The lake is south of everything and Dong Xuan Market is north of everything, so you cannot be lost for more than three minutes. Walk up one street and back down a parallel one; that is the whole method.

⚠️ Expect to walk in the road — the pavement is the shop, the kitchen and the parking. See Getting Around for the crossing technique, which you will need within about ninety seconds of arriving.

⭐ From Friday evening to Sunday night the core closes to traffic and becomes a walking street. It is the only time you can stand still in the middle of Hàng Đào, and it is when Hanoi brings its families out.

And the railway

Train Street is part of this quarter's life rather than an attraction, which is exactly why the cafés on the rails were closed. Read that page before you go looking for it.