Next to a tree with scarce leaves, on a plastic chair sits a bunch of coconuts. It’s in front of a juice bar I am sitting in that holds only six such chairs for guests. The person who owns the place is a very kind and welcoming woman in her fifties with quite good basic command of English and a less local accent than most Vietnamese people.

Apart from myself, there is one more client in this narrow venue. Contrary to them, I am sipping on a small Saigon beer, watching the Old Quarter in Hanoi being over-flooded with tourists and locals trying to make a living or in a hurry somewhere. People going left and right are trying to navigate the beeping sounds of motorbikes, or maybe it’s the motorbikes that try to navigate the crowd. I never can tell.

On the other side of the street is a local restaurant packed with Vietnamese clientele. A sure sign of good cuisine, with colorful lanterns hanging off the trees. In the self-made frame between the aforementioned bunch of coconuts and an adjacent glass cabinet with cigarettes, I notice two plastic basins filled with water from a garden hose on the sidewalk. A new part of dishes and cutlery is arriving every few moments, and I see a pair of hands doing the washing. Quickly, efficiently, without unnecessary delay.

The dishes keep making a typical bumping sound, which blurs together with the beeps, roars, voices, accents, shouts, music, and smells. This cacophony is inherently Vietnamese. It attacks your ears, leaves no space for compromise. It’s there, it’s bold, and sometimes unbearable.

In this sense, nothing has changed in Hanoi. Street sellers keep using megaphones with pre-recorded messages to sell their services or goods:

“Who wants warm bread?” - says a bánh mì vendor.

“I fix refrigerators, air conditioning, TVs, fans.” - says a man with a small tv on the back of his bike.

“Blouses only for XX Dongs.” - mentions a lady with clothes hanging off her bicycle.

Shops bombard you with huge speakers they put outside and play random music. The more bass and the better. They don’t even invite you in, nor do they share their offer. It’s about grasping your attention the easiest way there is - with a sound wave louder than the collective roar of motorbikes.

Some things never change, I guess, until they do. As I haven’t seen a single young person selling fast-moving goods off their bicycle, it makes me think that this view is bound to pass, making way for a different Hanoi.

Few restaurants I know have already changed. At least slightly. A seafood restaurant with the smallest toilet entrance I have ever seen (behind a refrigerator) with the owners’ family toothbrushes left inside has professionalized. They hired more staff, made a partnership with Tiger (a beer brand known in Asia), as well as, of course, raised prices. Fortunately, the quality of their seafood remains high.

The evening is starting to bring more and more people, although it’s quite cold today - 15 C instead of the regular 25-28 C in the evening this time of year. It’s been a week now that I’ve been in Hanoi, and I haven’t seen if the sky here is blue or not. Not sure if this is the infamous smog or just bad luck. I’m here for a few more months, so I hope I will crack the case although locals tell me it’s not a wish that comes true easily.

Meanwhile, I notice a little girl sitting with her family in the mentioned restaurant in front of me. She turned to the street, hidden behind a chair her size with her eyes only visible from the plastic back, and started observing people . She reminded me about the simplicity of just being and ingesting everything that comes my way. I think I’ll stop writing and do just that.

MARCIN KONKEL

Field Notes

Posts tagged with Vietnam

2025_03_30