[Aunche]

>When I decided to go to Vietnam, everything and everyone told me to go to Ho Chi Minh City. It had better food. More art. More high culture. Less government. So I went to Hanoi.

>The US equivalent is to go to Indianapolis instead of NYC or Houston instead of LA.

This is a really odd thing to say when Hanoi is the second largest city in Vietnam (larger than LA) and a huge tourist destination in itself. It's more akin to choosing LA instead of NYC.

[koyote]

I thought that was a very weird comment as well and your comment about it being like choosing between NYC and LA is spot on.

I am also surprised there's no mention of train travel. I found this the best way to get to know a country and its people. When you're stuck on a train for hours you end up talking to your fellow passengers.

India was great for this as everyone was chatty and spoke decent English. Vietnam was a bit more of a challenge on the language front but you still got to have some interesting conversations in basic English with some help by showing pictures.

I did not go very far off the beaten path in Vietnam but I really enjoyed the vibe and night life in Huế.

[oefrha]

This is not 2000 or 2010 any more. On a train virtually everyone has a smartphone, tablet or laptop, very few are “stuck” there for hours having nothing entertaining to do other than striking up a conversation with a stranger. At least in wealthier countries and on more comfortable trains.

And then there are people like me who always disliked chatty strangers, even back in 2000.

[hmillison]

I would argue that Hanoi is more touristy than Ho Chi Minh so this comparison just tells me the author doesn’t know what he is talking about

[hayst4ck]

Hanoi feels more novel to Americans than Ho Chi Minh, which feels like a fairly generic city. At least that's how I felt visiting the two.

Another thing you have to remember is that there are a lot of southern Vietnamese in the US, who brought their food with them. The average American has experienced more of south Vietnam than north without ever having visited.

Seeing the difference between a city that I perceived to be kind of emulating western culture (Ho Chi Minh), versus Hanoi, which has a culturally distinct feel about it, can reasonably lead a person to see a touristy city as a more cultural experience.

From an ameri-centric point of view, HCM is inundated with a kind of unpleasant or generic tourism (eat at these places, eat on a boat, go to this market, go to this tower, go to these museums, go to these "palaces," climb into vietnamese tunnels) compared to Hanoi where a lot of the tourism is related to both food and how beautiful the country is. It's kind of the difference between "this food is objectively good" and "this food is new and interesting."

[pazimzadeh]

The French Quarter in Hanoi is like stepping into a video game where Paris has been overgrown by Jungle. Incredible.

https://imgur.com/a/wpYbaq9

[hayst4ck]

Hanoi is one of my favorite cities in Asia. I'd probably place it number 3 after Taipei and Seoul (followed by Penang and Da Nang/Hoi An).

Beautiful pictures!

[neither_color]

Ive been to both and I definitely considered Hanoi more (locally) cultured. Also the comparison to Indianapolis doesn't make sense a smaller east coast US city like Washington DC or Boston makes more sense as it's a cultural and ideological center of the country.

[piffey]

Did you leave District 1? Just curious. HCM didn't hit for me until I started getting out of that curated core.