The Vietnamese nation was born among the lagoons and marshes of the Red River Delta around 4000 years ago, and for most of its independent existence has been ruled from Hanoi, Vietnam's comparatively small, elegant capital lying in the heart of the northern delta. The region is steeped in the past and, while it lacks the bustling river life and rich physical beauty of the Mekong Delta, there's a wealth of historical and spiritual sights to explore – despite innumerable wars and a sometimes hostile natural environment that's only partly been tamed by an elaborate, centuries-old network of canals and embankments.
Given the political and historical importance of Hanoi and its burgeoning population of over three million, it's a surprisingly low-key city with a more intimate appeal than brash, young Ho Chi Minh City. At its centre lies a tree-fringed lake and shaded avenues of classy French villas dressed up in jaded stucco, but the rest of Hanoi is bursting at the seams and nowhere is this more evident than in the teeming traffic and the vibrant, intoxicating tangle of streets known as the Old Quarter, the city's commercial heart since the fifteenth century. Delving back even further, a handful of Hanoi's more than six hundred temples and pagodas hail from the original, eleventh-century city, most notably the Temple of Literature, which encompasses both Vietnam's foremost Confucian sanctuary and its first university. Many visitors, however, are drawn to Hanoi by more recent events, seeking explanations among the exhibits of the Military History Museum and in Ho Chi Minh's Mausoleum for the extraordinary Vietnamese tenacity displayed during the wars of the twentieth century.
Modern Hanoi has an increasingly confident, "can do" air about it and a buzz that is even beginning to rival Ho Chi Minh City. There's more money about nowadays and the wealthier Hanoians are prepared to flaunt it in the ever-more sophisticated restaurants, cafés and designer boutiques that have exploded all over the city. Hanoi now boasts glitzy, multistorey shopping malls and wine warehouses; beauty parlours are the latest fad and some seriously expensive cars cruise the streets. Almost everyone else zips around on motorbikes rather than the deeply untrendy bicycle. The authorities are trying – with mixed success – to temper the anarchy with laws to curb traffic and regulate unsympathetic building projects in the Old Quarter, coupled with an ambitious twenty-year development plan that aims to ease congestion by creating satellite towns. Nevertheless, the city centre has not completely lost its old-world charm nor its distinctive character.
Hanoi, somewhat unjustly, remains less popular than Ho Chi Minh City as a jumping-off point for touring Vietnam, with many making the journey from south to north. Nevertheless, it provides a convenient base for excursions to Ha Long Bay, and to Sa Pa and the northern mountains, where you'll be able to get away from the tourist hordes and sample life in rural Vietnam (see "Ha Long Bay and the northern seaboard" and "The far north"). There are also a few attractions much closer at hand, predominantly religious foundations such as the Perfume Pagoda, with its spectacular setting among limestone hills. In the historical realm, dynastic temples mark where the Bronze Age Dong Son culture gave rise to the proto-Vietnamese kingdoms of Van Lang and then Au Lac, ruled from the spiral-shaped citadel of Co Loa just north of today's capital. The Red River Delta's fertile alluvial soil supports one of the highest rural population densities in Southeast Asia, living in bamboo-screened villages dotted among the paddy fields. Some of these communities have been plying the same trade for generations, such as ceramics, carpentry or snake-breeding. While the more successful craft villages are becoming commercialized, it's possible, with a bit of effort, to get well off the beaten track to where Confucianism still holds sway.
The best time to visit Hanoi is during the three months from October to December, when you'll find warm, sunny days (25–30°C) and levels of humidity below the norm of eighty percent, though it can be chilly at night. From January to March, cold winds from China combine with high humidity to give a fine mist which often hangs in the air for days. During this period temperatures hover around 20°C but may plunge as much as ten degrees in a few hours. March and April usually bring better weather and swathes of electric-green rice seedlings, before the extreme summer heat arrives in late April, accompanied by monsoon storms which peak in August and can last until early October, causing serious flooding throughout the delta.
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