Walking through memory: How Hanoi brings its past to life

THE HANOI TIMES — Hanoi is turning memory into movement with a new experiential walking tour around Truc Bach Lake, inviting visitors to step inside the capital’s rituals, cuisine, crafts and everyday life, transforming heritage from static display into a living, sensory journey.

Launched on December 27 by the Hanoi Department of Tourism in coordination with the Ba Dinh Ward People’s Committee, the tour, titled “Hanoi - Touching the Realm of Memories,” traces nearly a century of cultural life through nine curated cultural touchpoints clustered in the Pearl Island–Ngu Xa area, showcasing a growing shift in how Hanoi presents its past and moving beyond observation toward immersion.

Awaken the senses

Designed as a “nostalgia tour,” the program aims to resonate across generations, according to Tran Trung Hieu, Deputy Director of the Hanoi Department of Tourism.

“For middle-aged visitors, it recalls the subsidy-era years. For younger travelers and international guests, it opens a window onto lived histories rarely found in guidebooks,” Hieu said at the launch.

This ritual space, dedicated to Mother Goddess worship, one of Vietnam’s most prominent folk beliefs, is among the tour’s most compelling stops. It anchors a journey designed not simply to observe Hanoi’s heritage, but to experience it.

Officially launched on December 27 by the Hanoi Department of Tourism in collaboration with the Ba Dinh Ward People’s Committee, the “Hanoi - Touching the Realm of Memories” experiential tour represents a new direction in how the city presents its past.

As Tran Trung Hieu, Deputy Director of the Hanoi Department of Tourism, explains, the program is conceived as a “nostalgia tour” designed to resonate across generations.

"For middle-aged visitors, it evokes memories of the subsidy-era years. For younger travelers and international guests, it offers an intimate window into lived histories rarely found in guidebooks," said Hieu.

A captivating journey through Hanoi’s past

Rather than compressing history into timelines, the tour unfolds as a slow-paced walking experience, blending experiential tourism, heritage exploration and urban storytelling. Each stop is curated to engage all five senses, allowing relics, rituals and daily life to coexist in intimate, interactive spaces.

One of the tour’s most arresting moments unfolds at Thuy Trung Tien Temple, where Mother Goddess worship, one of Vietnam’s most prominent folk beliefs, is performed in its original ritual setting.

On a chilly late-winter afternoon, the measured rhythm of Chau Van music drifts across Truc Bach Lake, merging with the fluid movements of a spirit medium and her attendants. The once-quiet temple grounds become a living stage where belief, performance and community converge.

The journey begins nearby at Quan Thanh Temple, a special national monument and one of the Four Guardian Temples of the ancient Thang Long Citadel. The site serves as a symbolic gateway into Hanoi’s spiritual geography before the route moves toward everyday culture.

Culinary heritage comes into focus at the Pho – Bun – Soi (Noodles) tram carriage, where guests explore the “soul” of Hanoi’s food culture through its iconic noodle dishes, with pho as the defining highlight.

At Café – Coffee, the focus shifts to Vietnamese coffee culture, inviting visitors to experience traditional brewing, including a hands-on introduction to making salted coffee.

The tour then turns toward everyday memory, recreating the rhythms of daily life during the subsidy period. Kitchen – Cabinet – Tray presents simple meals of cassava and sweet potatoes alongside typical dishes and drinks of the era, while a Subsidy-Period Apartment reconstructs the familiar living spaces of Hanoi households in the last century.

Craft traditions are preserved at the Traditional Bronze Casting Exhibition House, which showcases the enduring skills of Ngu Xa artisans. Agricultural roots come into focus at Rice - Paddy - Grain, where visitors learn about rice cultivation, sample rice-based foods and drinks, and try their hand at making traditional Hang Than young sticky rice cakes.

The journey concludes in a mood of quiet elegance at Tea and the Eight Elegant Traditions, a space dedicated to both traditional and modern tea culture. Here, the eight elegant pastimes of ancient Hanoi- music, chess, poetry, painting, calligraphy, flowers, wine and tea- are introduced as expressions of a cultivated urban spirit.

From the perspective of a travel professional, Nguyen Tien Dat, CEO of AZA Travel, praised the immersive quality of the “Hanoi - Touching the Realm of Memories” tour.

“This tour allows both domestic and international visitors to experience Hanoi in a way that feels at once familiar and entirely new,” he said.

“Simply walking along Truc Bach Lake, tourists move through layers of romance, history, everyday life and local flavors, all within a compact route,” Dat added, suggesting the tour could be adapted into a half-day itinerary for international travelers with multilingual guides.

Meanwhile, Claire Dubois, a visitor from Lyon, who had arrived in Hanoi only days earlier and encountered the ritual by chance. Watching the spirit medium move in measured harmony with the Mother Goddess honoring music, she said the performance offered an unexpectedly intimate introduction to Vietnamese spiritual life.

“I didn’t understand every symbol, but I felt the emotion immediately. There is music, movement, belief and community all at once. It made Hanoi feel very alive, very human,” she stated.

The tour forms part of the broader “Leng Keng Heritage” tourism project, inspired by Hanoi’s historic tram system, which operated from 1901 to 1991. The symbolic No. 6 tram line is reimagined not as transportation, but as a moving vessel of memory, a “street museum” linking sites, stories and sensations across time.

In this context, “Hanoi - Touching the Realm of Memories” becomes more than a tourism product. It is a cultural statement, honoring heritage while reinterpreting it for contemporary audiences, and reaffirming Hanoi’s identity as a city that values depth, creativity and lived experience as it moves into the future.