Hanoi's Pavement

The pavement is for walking and parking in some places but if you come to Viet Nam, the pavement is a place for people to do business even it's illegal.

Wandering around Hanoi from morning till evening, you can try all types of good cheap food. Pho- noodle soup with chicken, beef or with organs, sweets, fruit and others along the streets of the old quarter or from people walking around. Both are great. I always eat at Lang Ong street where they sell best street noodle soup.

Coffee on the pavement is the most popular in Hanoi and customers sit on small low plastic chairs or wooden chairs and they use those small chairs as tables. These places are also the most popular places in Hanoi to hear all the lastest news, gossip or even the secret news from elsewhere in the world but do not trust what you hear with 100% accuracy.

The pavement is not only for parking and walking, but it is a place for car washing, pumping and selling petrol. You can also have a hair-do.

Unfortunately, the pavement is also a public toilet where people stop for a quick pee. Even people who drive a very expensive car or ladies who sell fruit on the street and sometimes parents help their baby to have a pee.

The pavement and middle of the street become one especially in the peak hours when people drive their motorbikes and bicycles like crazy on the pavement and pedestrians have to walk in the middle of the street instead of walking along the pavement.

In the evenings the pavement is a public park for lovers, young or old, a whisper for afew minutes then they go away together. The pavement is also a five star hotel for the homeless and beggars, giving them somewhere to dream about their future. If you walk around on hot days you can see lots of people sleeping along the pavements after lunch.

Markets on the pavement are also common where lots of small stalls of vegetables or some people just selling a few pieces of vegetable. Second hand clothes also very popular and can be seen along the streets where the sellers hang their stuff against the wall.

Anyway, that's just some examples about the crazy stuff that happens everyday in Hanoi. Even though the police try to stop them by giving fines, they are not very effective. And when someone shouts out loud that the police are coming, you will see so many people running up and down, running around trying to hide all of their stuff inside a house or up an alley before running away from thepolice. BUT the situation will return to the same when the police are gone. This is a very funny incident to watch, I promise!