Old Quarter 01

The Old Quarter in Hanoi includes 36 classic streets with over 2000 years of history that makes it just so special. Located between Hoan Kiem Lake and Long Bien Bridge. All of these streets start with Hang, which means merchandise or shop, and are named after their products, services and location.

Hang Bac (Silver Street) mainly sells gold and silver but there are also some other businesses such as rock engravers, silk and souvenir sellers. There are heaps of travel agencies, small hotels and DVD shops which stock all of the latest movies.

At the other end of Hang Bac is Hang Bo(Bamboo Basket) streets used to be the craft specialty of the street. Today the basket businesses have disappeared and been replaced by many other businesses such as banks, restaurants, clothes shops and hotels.

This is one of the busiest streets in the old quarter. In the day time sewing supplies are sold but is a bit different in the evening, when lots of Vietnamese rice wine shops open along the street. This is an interesting custom of Hanoians, drinking wine while eating grilled dried cuttle fish or fried Nem (sour spring roll) dipped in chili sauce. WOW - yummy but the street smells a bit fishy.