Ha Long or Hanoi?

Ha Long at least has the sea. Bai Chay's town beach is imported sand with shallow, often cloudy water, but swimming off a cruise boat in a quiet cove or on an island beach like Ti Top is a real pleasure in summer, and Quan Lan has cleaner sand for anyone willing to stay overnight.

Hanoi is an inland river city, and swimming there means a hotel pool or a water park by West Lake. Neither place is a beach destination, but only Ha Long lets you get into the sea at all.

Ha Long's table is built around seafood: crabs, clams and mantis shrimp picked from tanks in the halls of Hon Gai and Bai Chay, and springy cha muc squid cakes. Beyond that the choice narrows quickly, with set menus on the boats and large impersonal restaurants on the strip.

Hanoi is one of the great street-food cities. It is the home of pho and bun cha, with cha ca, banh cuon and sticky rice on the side, and a coffee culture of slow drip, iced condensed milk and egg coffee in hidden upstairs cafés. Food lovers will eat far better and more variedly in the capital.

Ha Long is a young, largely modern city, and its single great sight is natural. The Quang Ninh Museum is worth an hour and the floating villages such as Cua Van show life on the water, but a spare day in town soon runs dry.

Hanoi has a thousand years of layered history to walk through: the guild streets of the Old Quarter, Ngoc Son temple on Hoan Kiem Lake, the Temple of Literature, the Imperial Citadel of Thang Long and the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum. The Museum of Ethnology and Hoa Lo prison add depth, enough for three or four full days.

Evenings in Ha Long are quiet: beer halls, karaoke and seafood dinners in Bai Chay, winding down well before midnight, or squid fishing from the stern and an early night on a boat.

Hanoi has much more going on after dark. Bia hoi stools crowd the Old Quarter pavements from late afternoon, the lanes around Ta Hien get loud with backpacker bars, and West Lake adds cocktails and craft beer. Neither keeps going until dawn, but Hanoi is the one for a sociable night out.

This is Ha Long's great strength. Nearly two thousand forested limestone islets rise from green water, and you can kayak into lagoons, explore caves like Sung Sot, climb to the Ti Top viewpoint or head for the quieter Lan Ha and Bai Tu Long bays and Cat Ba's national park.

Hanoi's own green space is mostly its lakes, with a shoreline path round West Lake and dawn tai chi at Hoan Kiem. Its best scenery lies two hours away at Ninh Binh, where karst towers rise from rice paddies, a fine landscape but a smaller-scale echo of what Ha Long has on its doorstep.

From Ha Long, the standout outing is Yen Tu, the holy mountain of Vietnamese Zen with pagodas climbing through forest, and Hai Phong's colonial streets and the Bach Dang battlefield are also within an hour. Hanoi itself is too far for a comfortable day.

Hanoi has the wider choice. Ninh Binh combines the old capital of Hoa Lu with river caves, the Perfume Pagoda makes a memorable boat-and-cave pilgrimage, and craft villages like Bat Trang for ceramics and Van Phuc for silk, plus old Duong Lam, are close at hand.

Ha Long gives children an obvious adventure: boats, caves full of odd rock shapes, kayaking and swimming off the deck, with Sun World's cable car, Ferris wheel and water park back on shore. Check railings and lifejackets on cheaper boats, and save overnight cruises for older children.

Hanoi is warm towards children and the water puppet show suits all ages, but daily life on its streets is harder going. Scooter-filled pavements and constant motorbike traffic make outings with a pushchair tiring, so families do best with short trips from a hotel near the lake.

Neither is easy on foot, but Hanoi has the advantage. Its main sights cluster between the Old Quarter, Hoan Kiem Lake, the French Quarter and Ba Dinh, so much can be walked if you learn to cross slowly through the motorbikes.

Ha Long is spread in two halves either side of the Bai Chay bridge, and beyond the Bai Chay waterfront distances are long and pavements patchy. In both, cheap ride-hailing does most of the work, and Ha Long's cruises usually include transfers from Tuan Chau.

Ha Long offers little beyond the Bai Chay night market, pearl showrooms and the dried squid and fish sauce at Ha Long market in Hon Gai.

Hanoi makes shopping part of exploring. Old Quarter streets are still grouped by trade, Hang Gai turns out silk and made-to-measure clothes in a day or two, and the weekend night market runs up to Dong Xuan. Lacquerware, Bat Trang ceramics and hill-tribe textiles are far better buys than anything in Ha Long.

Both are very cheap on land, with inexpensive hotels, street food and taxis. In Ha Long, though, the cruise is unavoidable and usually the largest cost of the visit, and the waterfront seafood places charge tourist prices, so agree the weight before cooking.

Hanoi stretches money even further, since its pleasures are mostly street-level: a stool at a pho stall, a glass of bia hoi, modest temple and museum fees. Only international hotels, imported wine and a side trip to the bay push the budget up.

Ha Long has almost no stage life: staged shows in the Bai Chay entertainment complex and some folk singing on cruise boats.

Hanoi offers several worthwhile evenings. Water puppetry with live traditional music plays daily beside Hoan Kiem Lake, ca tru sung poetry is performed in Old Quarter communal houses, and the colonial Opera House hosts the national symphony, ballet and opera alongside a small jazz scene.

Both offer cheap massage and foot reflexology, and both towns are noisy with traffic, so the difference lies in where calm can be found. In Ha Long it is out on the bay: dawn tai chi on a sundeck, a night anchored in a sheltered cove, spas on the better boats, and the Quang Hanh hot springs about forty minutes away.

Hanoi has no such escape built in. Its calm comes from herbal baths in Old Quarter spas, the quieter lanes and cafés of West Lake, and the lakesides at dawn before the motorbikes arrive.