Train Street
A train that grazes the housefronts twice a day, in a lane three metres wide.
Duration
45 min – 1 hr 15 min
Best time
Half an hour before a train
Open
Every day
Entry price
Free
The Hanoi–Lao Cai railway crosses the old quarter in a cutting three metres wide, lined with houses whose doorsteps open onto the ballast. Two to four trains pass daily, slowly but less than a metre from the walls.
Cafés set up on the doorsteps and the street became a meeting place. The authorities have closed and reopened it in fits and starts since 2019 after accidents: access depends on the month you come, and you have to ask locally.
Getting there
The best-known stretch runs between Le Duan and Kham Thien, west of the old quarter. Train times are posted in the street's cafés.
Rules on site
The street is regularly barricaded by the police and access is never guaranteed. Timetables change: do not trust the ones in an article, ask at the café where you sit.
Other places in Hanoi
- Hoan Kiem Lake and Ngoc Son templeThe lake at the heart of the old town, its legendary turtle and the red bridge to the temple.
- The 36 streets of the old quarterOne street per guild since the fifteenth century: tin street, silk street, toy street.
- Temple of LiteratureVietnam's first university, founded in 1070, and its stelae carried on stone tortoises.
- Ho Chi Minh MausoleumThe embalmed body of the country's founder, watched over by a guard of honour in white.