Notes on Nam Dinh – A chilled-out version of old Hanoi

Nam Dinh is a city in Ninh Binh province in the Red River Delta region of Vietnam. I visited Nam Dinh in October 2025 as part of a rail trip where I was stopping at lesser-visited cities. This was a research trip for my website, Rail Vietnam. I was on my way from Vinh to Hanoi, and I stopped at Nam Dinh mainly because I was intrigued by why the line takes such a dramatic detour on the North-South line. [Vietnam Railway Map.svg by Dragfyre via Wikimedia Commons.] Nam Dinh was the capital city of Nam Dinh province until Nam Dinh was merged into Ninh Binh in July 2025. I was previously visiting every provincial capital in Vietnam, which was 63 provinces and cities. The provincial mergers have now reduced the list to 34, but I will probably still visit the former capitals. There is hardly any travel information about Nam Dinh online (apart from empty Tripadvisor pages), and there is no Wikitravel page. I did find a backpacker blog that created a guide to Nam Dinh, but this was an obvious…