Authentic Vietnam? Without any experience of a country, its history, people, culture or architecture who's to know what's authentic?
But Hanoi looks and feels like the real deal from the ramshackle and busy Old Quarter to the street food, swarming motor-scooters that make up most of the traffic and with musty, colonial French architecture and broad boulevards, Vietnam War era memorials and old temples it certainly has "the vibe".
1,500 square kilometers of almost 2,000 jungle covered limestone islets, caves, a population of 1,600 living in 4 floating fishing villages, armadas of tourist boats and an ever-present surface slurry of drifting plastic and polystyrene flotsam. The shoreline of the nearby mainland is undergoing an unfortunate transformation into an IndoChinese version of the Gold Coast or Miami although its success appeared dubious given an empty, weedy theme park and several half-constructed and seemingly abandoned hotel projects.
Hectic and frantic in the relatively compact CBD and on main thoroughfares but placid enough on the intersecting Perfume (but brown) River, nearby hill villages, jungles and temples.
The feudal seat of emperors from 1802 to 1945 it ceded its national capital status to Hanoi when the communist DRV government was established.
Old Town Hoi An, the historic district, is recognised as an exceptionally well-preserved example of a South East Asian trading port. Dating from the 15th century it is now a popular destination that has nevertheless managed to maintain its charm while also catering to the whims and wants of self-indulgent tourists.
Vietnam is a wet country. Long and narrow, nowhere is far from the coast with extensive river systems, ubiquitous flooded rice paddies and frequent rain and floods.
The Mekong Delta (the Nine Dragons river delta) is Vietnam's most productive region in agriculture and aquaculture with many villages accessible by river and canal rather than by road.
While naturally having commonalities with Hanoi, modernity has had a bigger impact with many skyscrapers and temples to mammon, the traffic is even denser and the Saigon River is a polluted and reviled sewer in contrast to Hanoi's valued lakes. That is not to say that the place is bad - it's not. It's just more akin to a generic city than is the more captivating Hanoi.
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