Hanoi, Vietnam. It’s chaotic, weather-worn, multi-layered and teeming with life from before the crack of dawn, through the day and long into the night. We visited in late April, when the temperature edged up and up until it pushed over the 40ºC mark, and I was captivated by the endless movement of its streets and squares and corners, which are lively no matter what time of day.
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At dusk, the people of Hanoi are already rising. In balmy mauve morning light, flocks of old folk gather in parks and by lakes to do their morning exercise; stretching and flexing gracefully and purposely through the shapes and motions of tai chi. Women cycle around the quiet streets and alleyways on bicycles, handlebars laden with swinging baskets and carrier bags filled with tropical fruit and vegetables to sell.
Before long, the hum of busy traffic begins, and motorbikes will be buzzing consistently throughout the rest of the day and into the night, most of them top heavy with entire families, or birdcages, plants or pieces of furniture. In the Old Quarter, shops are situated according to what they sell- all the lamp shops in one place, bamboo shops in another, mannequins in the next and spare motorbike parts on another. These are the 36 Streets- 36 streets organised according to trades- although these days the number of streets dedicated to individual trades is pushing 80. Inside each open shopfront, shopkeepers sit on tiny plastic stools, scrolling on their phones or fixing objects. On the wide boulevards of the more upmarket part of town, tiny, well-groomed dogs of all kinds of fancy breeds strut in and out of shops with their owners.
Locals gather in coffee shops to gossip over coconut coffee; Vietnam’s coffee culture is hugely important, and you can’t go far in Hanoi without stumbling across a coffee shop. Women crouch on sidewalks where they chat and prepare food. Peas are shelled into plastic bowls, and meat and fish are chopped with gigantic cleavers and left to marinate in the heat. I felt a smattering of raw fish guts spray across one arm as I rounded a corner and was met with the sound of an almighty chop, as a fish was sectioned into pieces by a tiny old woman wielding what looked like a machete. Down at the West Lake, teenagers hop into the candy-coloured swan pedalos to pedal their way across the grey water, overlooked by a hodgepodge of tube houses which look like each floor was added as an afterthought to the one below, green foliage draping down over rooftops which are linked across streets by tangled knots of black wires. Inside the vast majority of these Hanoi houses, several generations of families often live together in one or two rooms- layers of houses and layers of people.
In the early evening, the Hoan Kiem Lake Walking Street comes to life, as the wide street becomes pedestrianised and the warm glow of sunset spreads across the lake and the grand buildings and temples that surround it. Traders sell pomegranate juices and street food and tacky souvenirs from their carts on wheels, and locals swat shuttlecocks back and forth to each other on the pavement- badminton without the nets.
By nightfall, the streets are completely full. Pavements are filled, half with a sea of plastic stools where people sit gobbling steaming bowls of pho, engaged in animated conversation and gesturing chopsticks wildly, and the other half filling up with rows of motorbikes. It’s near enough impossible to actually navigate along a pavement after dark, they’re so full. Around the Hoan Kiem Lake, musicians play traditional music, attracting local groups of women and couples to dance beneath paper lanterns strung from tree branches. In quiet side streets, away from the hubbub, shops remain open and women continue to work studiously inside, stitching fabric together and hemming trousers. Even when you think you’re alone in a lane, and there’s nothing to hear but silence, it’s likely you’ll come across at least a cockroach or two scuttling away down the pavement beside you, matching the frenetic energy of the day.
The textures of this city fascinated me, and the opportunities for people-watching here are infinite. This photo diary from Hanoi was taken over three days in the city, in between trips to the hills of Sa Pa and the stone towers of Ha Long Bay, and all pictures were taken with the Olympus EPL-9 and the M.Zuiko 14-42mm pancake lens.
More from Vietnam:
Our Complete Ten Day Vietnam Itinerary