I love Hanoi, was just there this July.
Places I enjoyed tremendously:
- The Old Quarters. It's composed of a maze of short narrow street, each selling only one item. Many little pagodas also dot the area
- Tran Quoc Pagoda near the West Lake. It's the prettiest pagoda in my opinion and well worth going up
- The Museum of Ethnology. Other than indoors exhibits, they also have stilt and long houses you can wander into
- Hang Gai Street, the Orchard Road of Hanoi. The silk dresses were absolutely gorgeous
- Little art studios are found everwhere. The paintings range from run-of-the-mill you can get for US$2 to really nicely executed stuff priced at US$2,000. I must have bought 9 paintings when I was there, 5 of which are now hanging in my room now