Mind your Step!

Vietnam has become a favorite. It’s affordable to enjoy life’s luxuries, the food is some of the most delicious (and freshest) in the world, and it’s picture perfect. Its beauty is endless. Green rice paddies being tended by those wearing conical hats. Women on bicycles wearing the country’s simple and unassumingly sexy national dress, the Ao Dai. Businesses of every type simply set up on a street corner or against a wall serving every need from tire repair to making keys. Businesses are on the move too. They move by mounded high and strapped to bicycles or by women, always women, balancing two baskets on either end of a don ganh, a yoke on their shoulder, gently bouncing down streets and alleys. These women are selling everything from fruit (often longans) to pho. Carrying portable kitchens, they literally stop on request to prepare a fragrant bowl.  

The old city center of Hanoi is especially frenetic. Motorbikes, bicycles, automobiles, and pedestrians converge on the streets and sidewalks. At times it feels like they are headed directly at you. The noise pollution can be overwhelming, but the charm rises above. Escape into a hidden courtyard is wonderfully easy and the people are gentle and kind. If you’re lucky enough to be just a short flight away, it's worth the risk attempting to cross streets near Hoan Kiem lake.   

04/2011