The capital of Vietnam is just as mad and chaotic as Ho Chi Minh. It's a brilliant place to go.
Accomodation
Cocoon Inn: hard to find in Hanoi's chaotic one way system, but once we were there it was a very cosy little place to stay while we sold our motorbikes. There was a bike park just down the road that kept our bikes safe while we explored the old quarter. The workers were extremely helpful, even hanging onto some of our extra luggage for a few nights while we went to Ha Giang (buses that they organised). One of the bar staff was even an amateur magician, who was always happy to impress us all with his tricks.
Activities
Ho Chi Minh's Mausoleum was unfortunately closed, but the park surrounding it is still very pleasant, with the national guard patrolling.
Lotte Tower: a 260m skyscraper that allows visitors into its observation deck. From there you can see the whole city, which is otherwise impossible. Absolutely visit this tower.
Walking Tour: Cocoon Inn organises a walking tour through the old quarter, including the train track street, and a stop in the coffee shops. It ended at the market, which is always an interesting place to go and see what's available.
Hoa Lo Prison: the prison where John McCain was held captive, which has a long history from before that war. They offer headsets to listen to the stories and there are some truly incredible ones to hear, especially about the escapes that happened. In places it is quite harrowing, but definitely worth a visit.
Food
As always the street food was good, as was the coffee (I may not have mentioned earlier but I was drinking the coffee at every chance I got. It's delicious).
The most incredible part, and probably the best meal of the trip, was The Hung Snake restaurant. You go in a group, and select tier 1, 2, or 3 snake, then they go and kill one of the right size, fresh for you to eat! They also allow you to play with one of their snakes which is defanged and is essentially a pet (not the one you eat). Then they serve your snake in 12 different ways (all delicious), using all the different parts, and even shots of snake wine containing snake bile or the actual beating heart of the snake - all the while they give you free beer too! The owner was very friendly and chatted with us for a while about it, then showed us the bottles of snake wine (spirits with snakes sealed in) and how it's made. It sounds unappetising but it was the best meal we had, every single part was delicious (apart from the snake wine).
@rkmkiosk It was pretty damn warm. It's supposedly cooler the further north you go but I experienced very similar temperatures throughout the entire trip with just a couple of outliers. It was mid to high 30s (celsius) pretty consistently. It's very very high humidity as well, so google was telling me it 'felt like' closer to 50 some days in Hanoi. That was particularly bad though, Id adjusted to 40ish after a couple of weeks.
The only exceptions were Dalat (a mountain city, reached as low as 18 at night, and Ha Giang near the Chinese border would rain a lot so it was closer to 20s than 30s. Still overall very warm though, I wore the same clothes just with a waterproof on, and the rain wasnt too bad because I was so hot!
How hot is it in june? Btw amazing itinerary