The Most Colorful Street Art in Vietnam

Before you get any bright ideas like I did: do not let an AI navigate you to the start of Hanoi’s ceramic mosaic mural. I asked Claude for directions, it confidently sent me the wrong way, and I ended up on a loud, busy road with no mosaic in sight. Now I know just how patient my girlfriend really is.

My advice: ask a local, and definitely don’t take an AI’s word for it. Even that isn’t foolproof; our hotel manager had no idea what I was talking about. The mural runs along the Red River dyke, so aim for the section closest to the city center.

The mural. Once we actually found it, it was pretty interesting. The Hanoi Ceramic Mosaic Mural runs nearly 4 kilometers along the Red River dyke and holds the Guinness World Record for the world’s largest ceramic mosaic. It was built for Hanoi’s 1,000th birthday in 2010, and it’s made of millions of tiny 3 cm tiles, around a thousand in every square meter.

The designs change constantly as you walk: dragons and pagodas, raised reliefs of shrimp and birds, tropical fish, flowers, geometric patterns, folk figures and modern city scenes. Different sections were made by different artists and groups, so no two stretches look alike.

The best part is the stretch closer to town. We ended up walking almost all of it, but I wouldn’t recommend that unless you’re really into murals.

My tip: go early in the morning or late in the afternoon. There’s not much shade, and the road beside the mural is busy and loud.