Shopping and Markets in Hanoi, Vietnam (with prices)
A good way to start shopping is to look online for prices (when you are in Vietnam). For example, I googled “North Face men’s pants” and the local vendors pop up first (thanks Google search engine). I find the best price and take a screenshot so that if I’m tired of bargaining or just need to remember the right price range I can pull it up. Showing a shop owner the price I can order it for online worked every time to secure the same price in the shop.
If you need help with this, ask your hotel receptionist! In one case, the item we wanted (some dried leaves) was really difficult to find in shops, but very easy to find online in Vietnam. We paid local prices AND had it conveniently delivered to our hotel.
Cho Chau Long (Chau Long market).
This small enclosed market just south of Truc Bach island (which is in Ho Truc Bach, sectioned off from West Lake (Tay Ho)) is a nice place to visit if you are in the area. There is a restaurant on one side of the market serving various dishes. The market itself has a number of vendors selling fresh/live seafood, meat and chicken (love the whole roasted chickens which include the head), and many produce vendors. This market had some of the biggest cucumbers and buddha’s hands we have seen in Hanoi.
One of the entrances to Chau Long market
Vendors in Chau Long market
Meat vendor in Chau Long market
Cho Dong Xuan (Dong Xuan market).
This market is a full square city block located at Hang Khoai and Pho Dong Xuan, at the very north end of the Old Town Weekend market. It’s an enormous market with narrow aisles consisting of sections selling regular clothes, hats, fabrics, traditional clothing and dried food. The building with clothing has three stories of vendors. It’s easy (and fun) to get lost among the stalls but even Sarah, a semi-professional shopper, thought it was overwhelming. We believe this market primarily serves as a wholesale market to other city vendors as we saw many large orders being set up and driven away on scooters. Also, some shops will NOT want to sell to you (because they only do wholesale.) Generally, it is the smaller shops on the main floor that will let you buy retail from them, and some of the spice/dried food sellers.
Our favorite section was the dried food and spice section. There were vendors who specialized in just one thing, such as dried cuttlefish. That vendor would then have bins full of various sizes and types. There were specialist vendors in dried shrimp, dried mushrooms, nuts and dried fruits. We stopped at one vendor who was selling various herbs and spices, including various sizes of cinnamon bark. As we were discussing the cinnamon, she proceeded to pull out several gigantic bags of dried fruit and gave us samples from each. They turned out to be jujubes dried in various ways. We bought some ground cinnamon, and jujubes that tasted smoky (think chipotle peppers (which are dried, smoked jalapenos)). We returned later and bought butterfly flower (100K for 100 grams) and about the same price for star anise and stick cinnamon.
Some travelers from Australia who we met reported buying silk fabric for 70-90K per meter here at shop number 375 A2. It’s upstairs. They said to tell the shopkeeper that “Daisy sent you”. (Daisy was not the name of either Australian.). They didn’t mind selling a few meters to random tourists, but don’t expect them to be helpful. You tell them how many meters of the one you want, they cut, you pay, and that’s the whole of it.
Directly north of the market is a semi-enclosed, so-called ’night’ food market (on Hang Khoai) – it has lots of signs describing themselves as serving the best street food, etc. We had the most disappointing food of our trip there-ground meat grilled around lemongrass stalks. It was fine, just not nearly as good as everything else we had been eating. A better choice is to go onto Hang Khoai street and get bun rieu or bun cha from any of the alley vendors.
If you follow any of the alleys for a block, you will come out onto another market street (basically running under the train tracks on Pho Gam Cau) with vendors selling all kinds of household goods
Where to eat near here: There are many bun rieu sellers near here. Check out our Hanoi restaurant and food page, and the listing for Bun Rieu, for information. You can also buy some fruit, like pineapple spears or whole apples, persimmons, etc from many sellers surrounding the market. Finally, if you want to try some chao suon (rice porridge with chicken broth), there is a spot directly opposite the main entry of the market.
Night market on P. Hang Giay/Nguyen Thien Thuat
On a weekday night, we went one block east of where the old town weekend market is and stumbled onto another night market. There are several blocks of produce sellers, mostly fruit but also a number of onion/garlic vendors, as well as a block of live seafood vendors and several dried meat vendors, making jerky and pork floss. The seafood vendors also prepare the seafood for eating right there with various sauces. We asked several employees at our hotel about the market and they said it had no official name. It appears to extend from P. Nguyen Trung Truc at the north end to P. Luong Ngoc Quyen at the south end.
Cho Hang Da market (old town)
This shopping mall was basically across the street from our hotel, but it took us a few weeks to venture inside. We had read reviews that it was underwhelming. Those folks didn’t find the basement market!!
The easiest way to find the market (and food court) in the basement is to go around the building to what you imagine is the back side of it and enter there by steps leading down.
There are all kinds of stalls here selling clothing, shoes, housewares, incense, and spices/tea. If Dong Xuan sounds like it will be too much for you, this is a mini version that will be much more manageable, set up for retail, and completely devoid of tourists. We bought some buffalo horn spoons and forks here (basically $1 per untensil), and we found the circular incense we’d seen in the temples (100K for a box of about 20 coils + 10K for a metal incense holder)
incense seller in the market
Some Shops Around Town I Liked
Indigo Store: (33A P. Văn Miếu, Văn Miếu, Đống Đa, Hà Nội) Traditional linen clothing and modern styles made with traditional materials for fair prices, with many items made for non-Viet sizes. The shop is across the street from one side of the Temple of Literature.
Another clothing shop, also on Van Mieu, between the KOTO restaurant and the Indigo Store. It’s not on Googlemaps and I can’t find the name. I actually bought stuff here. They had some great styles in lovely fabrics, and some Western sizes! They have a small selection of well-made accessories and craft items at fair prices, like the cashmere and linen hand-woven scarves I bought.
Phuc Tin (22 Hang Gai) Lovely array of fine silver, ceramics and more. The guy in the shop said he was the son of the silversmith–magazine article on display and we did see a documentary on the airplane about there being only 2 artisans of the traditional silver filagree remaining in Vietnam. The silver pieces they have are amazing (and expensive). They have a few low end things closer to the door and the pricey stuff is towards the back. They also have very well chosen metal, ceramic, and wood pieces, but everything I liked was about 13-50 million dong, so $500+. If those prices don’t scare you, and you want some quality local art and antiques, I recommend a visit.
Shoes, Northface, and other “Made In Vietnam” Marketing
These are not “real” if you get them on the street or at Made in Vietnam stores. Sure, I believe they are made in Vietnam, and I believe Nikes and Northface are made in Vietnam. It’s like “all-natural ingredients” There are many “natural” things that are not good to eat. Made in Vietnam is not the same as made in the Nike factory in Vietnam. (Also check out the elastic waistbands pre-printed with name brands that are for sale at sewing notions shops! Very easy to make a pair of “Tommy Hilfiger” underwear.)
So, knowing the Nikes and Adidas I was about to buy were fakes, I figured I could buy authentic low-end Nikes for $20 on sale in the US, so I wanted a price lower than that. We ended up with two pairs of Nike Airs–running shoe style–and paid 400K (about $16) and 450K at 2 different shops. The starting price was between 450-550K. We also visited shops that started at 600K for the same. The store that started at 450K said the Nikes and the Adidas we were looking at were the same price. Other shops had tried to differentiate, making Adidas and different “cooler” styles of Nikes more expensive. Remember, they all cost about the same to make so why should one be more expensive?
Our guide in Ninh Binh confirmed that the “Made in Vietnam” stuff is fake. He described several layers of counterfeit – first, clothing or other apparel, made from whatever cloth or material available, with a brand name on it; second, low grade material used that is similar in look to the real brand cloth with a brand name sewn on; and third, similar material to that used by the name brand but sewn by small shops with a brand name sewn on.
How can I tell they are fake? Labels have a made-by date in 2016. Some labels are sewn in messily. A pair of Nike Airs at one store fit quite differently than a pair at the next store, though they were supposed to be the exact same style, color, and size. Also, look at the inventory. If these were real, how could these small shops afford to have 150 pairs of Air Jordans?
For the North Face items, I noted that the pant sizing was quite a bit different (smaller) than what the company shows for its online sizing chart. Normally a size 34 mens would be a medium, and we bought XXL. (We also compared 3 different pairs of XXL and saw one was about 2.5″ wider than the others). Price: 300K ($13). The starting price was 450K. I was tired so I just showed him the online price of 300K I found and he caved.
Dry bags: They have dry bags in all sizes from 2-20 Liter. One shop told me 150K any size. That was their starting price so they can probably be had for less. When I actually wanted to buy bags though, I forgot where the shop was that offered me the best price, and other places started their bids 250-450K, and varied by size. At a shop with an opening price of 220K I made my decisions on colors and sizes and then just said 300K for 2, because I was tired of bargaining. After one round of “no, it’s a good deal, take it” the salesman agreed.
Other prices I was quoted:
10L North Face dry bag starting bid between 150-250K, though some will try and start you higher and some will say that size affects price and others won’t.
Superdry or North Face (fake) weatherproof backpack: opening bid 350-600K. I think this can be had easily for 300K ($13) and probably less.
Raybans can be had for 10K if they are non-Polarized, much more if Polarized.
Traditional conical Vietnamese palm hat: locals said they pay 15K for this
Pearls: you need to understand what makes pearls more or less expensive to make an informed purchase. Strings of nice, very large pearls that seemed uniform in color and size and had decent luster were about 2 million dong (USD$82), usually with “this is 4M but I’ve put it on sale for 2M”. If you are buying in a shop in Hanoi, they are probably Chinese, and perhaps the thickness of the pearl is not as much as a “finer” pearl. Places on Cat Ba Island priced very low quality strands for 3 million dong (USD$122). You have to know what’s important to you in pearl buying. Check out what you can get at your local TJMaxx or Ross before you come. There are some lovely, but irregular, strands to be had for $20 or so. Do you need something that looks finer? Do your research.
Hmong-made linen long jacket: 2-3 million dong (USD$80-120). Note these were not available for purchase in the far North. If you see something for sale in the city that you like and is made of linen (not cotton) and is in your size, 2-3 M is a reasonable price. There’s a store at the Vietnam Ethnology Museum that is selling what I believe are “real” used pieces for about twice that price or more. (Like 11M for one long coat.)
Hmong linen pillowcase: the handmade ones at the Collective we visited in the North had them for 250K. These were handmade from start to end. A very nice shop in Hanoi had some for 160K; I’m guessing these were all or partly machine-made, but still linen and batik. Tourist shops in the North had machine-made ones for 350K.
La Nep (dried tea): our hotelier helped us order online. It was 30-40K for 100 g, plus the delivery fee. Fresh La Nep is half that, but only if I bought a kg(!) and besides, one can’t bring fresh leaves into the US.
Linen men’s shirts: initial offer is about 500K. I got them down to 900K for one short sleeved and one long sleeved, good quality 100% linen with nice finishes, but this still seems like a bit much to me. A 3/4 length sleeve woman’s shirt that is almost long enough to be a dress: initial offer 600K, and she said she’d make it to order in my size.
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