Of course before I went to Vietnam for the first time in 1998 I read everything I could get my hands on. There weren't too many guidebooks for tourists, though, and as I recall there was one AOL interest group about Vietnam that had a total of three members, one of whom was me. (One of those members warned me that the weather was "sweltering" which proved to be an understatement. But still I remember reading it.)
So based on a recommendation in the Lonely Planet guidebook, I chose a three-star business hotel in Hanoi, Galaxy Hotel (now permanently closed) on Hang Cot, near the Old Quarter. My room was more than basic, had AC, hot water and a few Vietnamese TV channels, and except for one early afternoon, the electricity worked. The location was close enough to the tourist sights but it was also quiet--an amenity not all hotels in high-volume Vietnam (or maybe anywhere) can offer, truth be told.
The pretty much all-glass Galaxy Hotel lobby looked out on a roundabout, and during the late afternoons when I sat to cool off and watch the traffic, I was usually offered a bottle of water or a Tiger Beer. Since at that time (more than these days), traffic moved like fish swim but with pedestrians, motorbikes, bikes and bigger vehicles just kind of making their way any way they wanted to, I had a lot to look at.
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