Hanoi's Instagram hotspot 'Train Street' cautiously reopens to tourists

Filepic from 2019 showing visitors and tourists standing on the sides to photograph a passing train in Hanoi's popular "Train Street". – Photo: AFP

Nearly three years after Vietnamese authorities shuttered cafés along Hanoi's famous "Train Street" and banned selfie-snapping tourists from visiting, vendors have cautiously returned in recent months – although nobody knows how long the area will remain open.

On the approximately 50-metre thoroughfare in central Hanoi, locomotives thunder down a railway line that runs perilously close to residential buildings, many of which have been turned into cafés, bars and souvenir shops.