My trip to Hanoi was mainly to decide if i want to live here as opposed to staying in Thailand and I will detail my opinion from a first-look perspective. I am not trying to compare all of Vietnam to all of Thailand because I haven't been to enough of either to form a good analysis. I am certain there are exceptions to the rules but I just want to state what my own personal experience has been in the short amount of time that I have been here with very limited research prior to arriving. For the sake of a fair comparison I am going to compare Bangkok to Hanoi only.
Food
Winner = Hanoi
Both countries have a wonderful array of food options. If we are speaking from a purely "food of that country" perspective, I think most people would argue that Thai food is certainly the more popular of the two countries. I have found that the food outside of local delicacies tends to be significantly cheaper in Hanoi (as i mentioned in my past article.) Both cities have really anything you can imagine because there are millions of people living in both. Although I personally believe that Thai food is better than Vietnamese food, I think that cost of said items is more important (to me.) Therefore the winner of this category is Hanoi
Transportation
Winner = Bangkok
These are both gigantic cities and I believe that both places are doing the best they can with the limited space they have available. The roads in both seem like chaos to those that are not accustomed to them. Both have extremely cheap taxis that are available 24 hours a day and thanks to the Grab app you need not even negotiate or be concerned if the driver is using the meter like we used to a few years back. The big reason why Bangkok wins this one is because they have a subway and a skytrain... so i think it is easy to understand why Thailand wins this round. If the public transport trains did not exist, I think the edge would go to Hanoi since the chaos of the roads seems to be understood by everyone and it flows for the most part. Bangkok would gridlock (as it did regularly before the trains were there.)
Accommodation
Winner = Bangkok
This has been the biggest disappointment for me upon visiting Hanoi. My reason for coming here was to find an apartment. There are tons of options and my budget was relatively, i dunno, medium. I was prepared to spend up to $700 a month and I don't mean to sound like a posh jerk, but what I was seeing for even at the max budget was not really impressing me. Most of the apartments I looked at were rectangles with very little character to them. Basically something that made me feel claustrophobic. I also looked at a currency converter website and found out that $700 is over 22,000 Baht, and prior to coming here I looked at some places for 22,000 in BKK that were on the train line and they were significantly nicer. Sorry Hanoi, but Bangkok wins by a mile in this category.
Immigration
Winner = Hanoi by 1000 miles
If you follow what I write about you will see that I complain constantly about Thai immigration. This may be difficult for the reader to identify with but I have been going through it for nearly 15 years. So I have a bit of experience. I have never had an experience with Immigration in Thailand that had even an ounce of humanity or empathy associated with it - at best you hope for robotic indifference and pray for the absence of accusation and authoritarianism.
In Hanoi, i was smiled at, treated with respect, helped even. Also they seemed to place a great emphasis on efficiency whereas in Thailand they have a "F%&k em' make 'em wait," type attitude. Krabi (where i come from) is so bad that I actually intentionally arrive at a different Thai airport in order to avoid the megalomaniacs that are employed by immigration there. That's a different story that I will likely continue to tell for the next 15 years. Anyway, Hanoi easily wins this category.
Ability to friggin walk around
Winner = Bangkok
this really isn't that bad, trust me, there are much worse LOL, you remember this gripe right? Well, I feel it is an important part of life and while both cities have their historically narrow roads, there just simply seems to be very few exceptions in Hanoi other than parks and shopping malls. There just aren't very many usable sidewalks. Also, while they do incorporate more exercise, I haven't seen even one pedestrian overpass to get over a massive road. These are everywhere in Bangkok and it facilitates getting around much much better. I want all my Vietnamese pals out there to not get upset with me about this, but i feel as though it is a fact. I have not seen the entire city but I've been to quite a few places and you have to always stay on your toes while generally walking single file in the street. Perhaps this takes some getting used to and it is not that big of a deal it was just really inconvenient to me and my own brain is the only one I have access to for an opinion.
Friendliness / lack of scams
Winner = Hanoi
This one will probably get me in trouble but I feel that the people of Hanoi are generally more kind and I don't feel as though I am being scammed all the time. This is a big problem in Thailand and even the government is in on it with their "two tier" entrance fee pricing schemes. When i visited tourist attractions the other day in Hanoi, it was 30,000 to get in. Not 30k for Vietnamese and 120,000 for foreigners the way it would be in Thailand. To be honest i wouldn't mind a slight markup for visitors but 4x the price is outrageous. Also, while I am not saying there are NO scams in Hanoi, because I am sure there are, I've been here for a week and was only overcharged by a motorbike taxi and even then it was something absurd like $1 more than i should have paid.
I also feel as though there is a very disingenuous friendliness that happens in Thailand: Big smiles and happiness until you decide you don't want whatever thing is for sale, then they can be outright mean to you. While a vast majority of Thai people are very nice I have found that overall, Hanoi is just a kinder city.
So that is 3 each. I'll leave it up to you who the winner is. There are many more categories, obviously, than just the ones I have listed. I would say that particularly for English teachers (which i was once, but am not now and haven't been for a long time,) Hanoi wins easily based solely on the fact that you will make double the salary there. For other professions I can't really say other than digital nomadic type things in which case I would say BKK wins based on my own personal experiences.
So, what do you think? I intentionally didn't choose and overall "winner" because I don't want to hurt anyone's feelings.