Meandering through Hanoi past the endless myriad of miniature shops, offering everything from street food to foot massages, tuk tuk rides to conical hats.
Every little business is fighting for a few feet of broken pavement to display and sell their goods. Competing with the shop next door, selling much of the same. All fighting to take a few more 1000 dong, ideally from tourists more ready to pay a quarter of what they would pay at home.
And yet we walk past, unsure of the quality and not wanting to be trapped in the sellers spiders web, pressurised to buy and nervous about bartering.
With my retailer hat on I wonder about their stock levels, the wastage, the margins, the supply chain and the hours of labour. I just hope the rental costs are reasonable.
We tread carefully on see-saw slabs, around plastic bin bags bursting with garbage, badly parked scooters, innumerable random obstacles.
Finally we step into a shop – the owners are warm and smiling, and simply trying to make a living. We didn’t need to barter to get a bargain. So I bought a 250,000 dong shirt – and politely declined their attempt to upsell me a foot massage. That’s about £7 by the way.
We have become immune to the crazy parade of scooters speeding past us, towards us and around us. We manage to avoid each other in some elaborate dance, where the only rule is “no touching”.
We have learned that it would take forever to cross the road if we waited for a gap. We simply have to set off and trust the drivers to see us and dodge around us. The zebra crossings are simply aesthetic and the red and green lights purely ornamental.
And yet it all sorts of works. In the absence of a highway code, people rely on observation, common sense and a highly tuned respect for risk. We haven’t seen anything like an accident in two days and feel safe to walk on the pavements or in the road. However, statistics suggest pedestrians are around 3 times as likely to be killed here compared with the UK.
But keep your wits about you and you’ll be safe and pick up some great bargains. And you can enjoy Hanoi for all that it is – a crazy kaleidoscope of colour, aromas, noise and movement.
Unwrapping The World 