Wheeling and dealing: word for word

Navigational hazard

You would have heard of the notorious traffic in Vietnam's  cities. It's a stream of moving cars between heaving rivers of motorbikes, criss-crossed by pedestrians and peddlers of all sorts on bicycles either pedalling or pushing. It can all be very intimidating for the newcomer. 

Attuning to the traffic

Our first experience with such traffic was in HCM city about 10 years ago. We stood waiting patiently for traffic to ease before crossing the road. After about 15 minutes we knew it was futile. And so we inched forward. Lo and behold! The sea didn't part, but the traffic flowed around us. Skilled drivers at low speeds cause little harm. But beware. Do not freeze in the midst of crossing for the motorcyclist may not be able to plan a manoeuvre for something not anticipated. The confusion could cause accidents. 

Unexpected ‘ride’

A friend who was travelling with us was gently hit. Not because she stalled while crossing. It happened even before we started. As usual we checked the traffic in the general flow before putting a step forward and that meant looking to the left. As soon as she put a foot forward she found herself straddling the wheel of a bike that came in the opposite direction! Luckily, no one was hurt. 

So, when you are crossing the road whether at a traffic light or not, just go across looking ahead. Those on wheels will go around you just as water finds a path of natural flow. Blinders are good, but do not close your eyes.

Visiting Vietnam again, this time in Hanoi, we find the same situation. We are jittery only for the first few hours. After that, nothing, not even the honking, bothers us. 

Alternatives: do they exist?

Are there no sidewalks? Of course, there are, but mostly occupied by parked motor bikes, in between the ubiquitous food vendors' temporary restaurants, or the spilling out of a permanent one. Motorists also stop to pick up food as though these vendors and cubby hole cafes were drive-ins. 

Wheels over legs

When you walk into a wholesale market with narrow aisles you expect pedestrians. But in the one I went to, every buyer came on wheels, bargained and purchased while still seated, had the vendor tie up the goods on a rack at the back, and then drove away. This means that the goods are packed in sturdy plastic bags guaranteed not to split while in the process of being transported. Also there is generous use of styrofoam boxes for handling seafood and meat.

Hustling and sidling

In Hanoi's biggest market, Dong Xuan, built in the 19th century by the French, we have to sidle down the aisles to avoid toppling mannequins. We are rudely brushed against by locals who know how to navigate crowds. Beware of pickpockets!

The several levels (housing hundreds of shops) now connected by escalators, are specialised sections  brimming with goods– clothes, shoes, household items, toys, accessories and Vietnamese textiles. The sales women seem to be doing more stocking than selling. 

Organised hodge podge: abundance in quintessential Old Quarter 

The covered market mentioned above is in the Old Quarter surrounded by umpteen streets lined with shophouses chock-full of goods. Each street specialises in a particular category of goods. You name it– soft furnishing, jewellery, textiles, tailors, prayer goods, religious  artefacts, candy, metal cookware, decorations, soft toys, basketry, stickers, soft toys, footwear, disposable packaging, ropes, even travel – they have it. It's amazing how they keep stock, and how the sales women are able fulfil a request or an order within a few mins. The purchaser does not have to leave the perch on his/her motorbike. The transactions are amazingly speedy. Amazing efficiency in what seems to be a labyrinthine layout.

Affordability and utility versus ecofriendliness

You would have seen pictures of motorcycles balancing a ton of goods either in sacks or plastic bags strung together strategically all around the rider. When we walk along the wholesale shops we see piles of clear plastic bags laid out ( to dry?) along the edge of the street. Large bins are overflowing with garbage. They are frequently emptied by the municipality. 

I now know that plastic is either reused or recycled, for the country in embracing a circular economy.

A room with a view: Hanoi, Vietnam

Not a nuisance but a golden opportunity 

Hanoi, Vietnam for 10 days, by fluke. We had given ourselves only 6 days in Hanoi after spending 4 days in Luang Prabang, Laos, but our flight tickets to the latter destination was lost among the many business connections between the various companies vying for our dollars. What is there to do for 10 whole days? You'd be surprised.

Where exactly are we?

We have booked an apartment just across the old quarters. We are not in the modern, slick city with gleaming  highrises. They are tucked away in the distance. On the first day, having arrived in the evening, all Drink does is walk to the closest market ( suggested by our host) to shop for a handful of vegetables to prepare our first dinner in Hanoi. He would get more the next morning.

Going through Google maps of the area does not give us a feel for the place. We think we are in the old quarters. Nothing like a bit of physical exploration to get our bearings. And we set forth the next day hoping to negotiate the maze of streets without much difficulty. Only after a few days does it dawn upon us that we are in fact across the old city, in its periphery. And the overhead pedestrian bridge, across 12 busy lanes, connects this part to the historic part.

Realisation

Not only are we getting familiar with the terrain walking 8 to 13 km a day, but also the community. Our corner apartment on the 4th flour has large windows and French doors that give us a bird's eye view of everything that goes on throughout the day.

A few days into our visit we discover to our delight that the road, along which we had bought a variety of luscious tropical fruits from the vendours' tantalising  heaps, that our living room is actually facing the road that leads to the famed Long Bien wholesale vegetable and fruit market just about a 100m away!

The wall that separates our precinct from the 12 lanes and the old quarter, boldly marked at the portals with the large red Vietnamese flags, is part of the longest ceramic mural wall in the world! And to think that we had gone looking for it nearly 5 km away only to find that it led us back home! It is not fortification for it is not around the old quarter. It is not simply a decorative wall.  It is actually part of the dike system along the Red River that runs through Hanoi. The murals contributed to by a variety of artists from various countries was the brainchild of a diehard Hanoi citizen.

Compact eatery: up in a snap, gone in a snap

Just inside the wall, at 5:30 am, a woman briskly sets out her low plastic tables and chairs on the pavement. From her rolling cart she pulls out a bucket of water, bowls and cutlery. She already has customers. They get tea poured out from two huge thermos flasks. The hot noodle soup or porridge is served. Her customers are retailers who have come to purchase stock from the whole sale market. By 6:30am it is already getting sunny. She pulls out a beach umbrella which has a receptacle on the cart. Her customers move into the shade. For rainy days she has a much bigger tarp for a canopy. By 7:30 am she is almost sold out. She pours out the bucket of water which she has used to rinse out the bowls for her customers. She packs everything, including the stackable furniture, compactly into her cart and trundles away.

The same woman appears again in the evening and goes through the same routine under the street light. One day, when she did not appear we got worried! Was she ill? Did she have something to attend to?

Occasionally a policeman on his rounds would patronise her.

Catnap any time anywhere

The moment she cleared out motorcycles filled up the space. At one time the policeman even had a nice long nap reclined on his motorbike!

Portable retail

She is not the only vendor we become keenly interested in. A woman,  in the typical conical straw hat walks down the market street and the turns into the busy lanes and crosses them. She balances a pole across her shoulders, baskets slung at each end,  carrying paraphernalia needed for cooking and serving as well as the ingredients for the particular type of food she specialises in. Occasionally she rests the baskets on the ground, readjusts the pole and then continues to walk with her mobile kitchen until a customer hails her.

Another woman has different types of fruits, attractively arranged, in her baskets, again walking along and across the roads keeping an eye out for possible sales.

No rear view or side view mirrors for a moving mass

Then there are the women who balance two to three bamboo trays of fruit on their bicycles. When a customer hails them, they pull out a stout stick to prop up the bicycle to free their hands. They are a godsend to busy housewives and business women

Others carry loads of flowers of different types an colours. We always worry for them when they cross the busy arterial road. They are smart. They walk  the bicycle across rather than pedal.

In the afternoon two ladies each with carts tactfully loaded sky high with hats of all kinds pulls their loads through our street lined with parked motorcycles and cars whike also dodging moving vehicles. It's like driving a truck with a great sense of clearance all around the mobile store. Even if one hat slides off it could, horror of horrors, cause an avalanche of hats.

We breath a sigh of relief everytime these industrious, unrelenting business women navigate safely.

Male Chauvinism or respect for resilience and hardwork?

You'd have noticed that I spoke only of women. No, I'm not biased. This is the stark truth about Vietnamese society. Men generally  just seem to drive taxis, ride motorbikes, and sit around drinking tea or beer, depending on the time of day and depending upon whether they hold a job in mens forte as in information technology, oil and gas etc.

But the street barbers are definitely men.