Hanoi, Vietnam Photography | Clever Tourists

Photographing Hanoi

The layered capital of narrow old streets, lakes and faded colonial grandeur.

Where to shoot

Hoan Kiem Lake — a calm central lake with the red Huc Bridge leading to a temple on a small island, serene at dawn.
Old Quarter — a maze of trade streets thick with motorbikes, vendors and tube houses, best explored slowly on foot.
Train Street — a narrow residential lane where a working railway passes within feet of cafes and homes.
Temple of Literature — Vietnam's first university, a serene walled complex of courtyards, gateways and ponds.
Old Quarter — a dense web of trade streets and shophouses, busiest and most alive in the early morning and evening
Hoan Kiem Lake — a tree-lined city lake with the Ngoc Son Temple on a small island reached by a red bridge
Temple of Literature — an 11th-century Confucian academy with serene courtyards and traditional architecture
Train Street — a narrow residential lane where a working railway runs close between the houses
Motorbikes threading the narrow lanes
Trade streets and stacked shophouse facades
Ta Hien 'beer street' in the evening
Doorway shrines and street-side kitchens
The red Huc Bridge to Ngoc Son Temple
Dawn tai chi around the lake
French colonial villas and the Opera House
The car-free lakeside on weekend nights
The Temple of Literature's layered gateways
The lotus pond and Well of Heavenly Clarity
Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum's stark plaza
The One Pillar Pagoda
Tran Quoc Pagoda at sunset
West Lake's cafés and flower gardens
Train Street when a train passes (if open)
Lotus fields in early summer

When to go

Cooler, drier weather runs October through April, with autumn (September to November) especially pleasant; summer turns hot, humid, and prone to heavy rain.