EZTrip.com International Destination Guide and Hotel Listings

At the heart of Hanoi lies Hoan Kiem Lake , around which you'll find the banks, airlines and GPO, plus many hotels, restaurants, shopping streets and markets. The lake lies between the cramped and endlessly diverting Old Quarter in the north, and the tree-lined boulevards of the French Quarter to the south. West of this central district, across the rail tracks, some of Hanoi's most impressive monuments occupy the wide, open spaces of the former Imperial City , grouped around Ho Chi Minh's Mausoleum on Ba Dinh Square and extending south to the ancient, walled gardens of the Temple of Literature. A vast body of water confusingly called West Lake sits north of the city, harbouring a number of interesting temples and pagodas.