While much has been written about Ho Chi Minh city on this website, the capital of Vietnam, Hanoi, has not been really covered yet. I have lived in Hanoi, and I could write a whole book about each aspect of the city.
It is a city which is very hard to fall in love with. Perhaps one day I will cover each aspect of Hanoi, and perhaps, if Stickman allows, on his website, but for now I would like to focus on one aspect — the nightlife. This was innocent happiness. I digress…. While for the beer lovers out there, Bia Hoi might be somewhat mediocre and watery beer, but for a price this cheap at a location like this , right in the centre of city life, I would definitely recommend you to give it a try.
Loved by expats and locals alike, drinking Bia Hoi will be a great start of your evening. To make it more interesting, you could also eat street food with it, whether it is beef barbecue or roasted squid. It is good stuff and great for socializing. Hanoi Beer, Saigon Beer, , Huda, Festival beer, Biere Larue, and so on, all great stuff, some of them even comparable with the famous Beer Lao but none of them are as good, I would say.
While it has its advantages such as having no aggressive Vietnamese nouveau riche scum, these bars are basically the same throughout South-East Asia. Some backpackers will not even know the difference between Thailand and Vietnam, because they just move around within the backpacker enclaves of each country. Personally I was not a big fan of them, but in a city with a kinda of boring nightlife, they are a real option. Your regular expat bars This is truly a mixed story. Some bars are very beautiful since they are located in old historical buildings — Barbetta for example, other bars are dodgy as hell.
Some places are also in rapid decline in terms of quality, thanks to the previous mentioned aggressive Hanoian rich boys.
