For those that didn't know, Hanoi is the capital of Vietnam.  It was also North's stronghold during the Vietnam/Indochina/American War.  Hanoi lags behind Saigon/Ho Chi Minh City by about 15 years in terms of technology, culture and general westernization.  Most people still get around by bike and mopeds, pollution is a problem, many people eat their dinner on the sidewalks watching everyone go about their business. 

I thought that Hanoi was a much more interesting city than Ho Chi Minh City as I found the latter to be much more modernized and the people were less friendly.  The employees at the hotel we stayed in in Hanoi would frequently invite us to join them for dinner, went across town to pick us up tickets for the water puppet theatre, bought us fruits they thought we might like and would run out to buy us coffee.  I also found it interesting that a number of the people who worked at the hotel did not have their own home (or lived so far away that it would be ridiculous to commute) and so they slept on the floor in the lobby of the hotel after they closed up which I assumed was no earlier than midnight.

For more reading about Hanoi... Hanoi in a Very Tiny Nutshell