Hanoi

The overwhelming and exciting street life of Hanoi is the most impressive thing I've seen in Vietnam so far. When, on the morning after our late night arrival, we descended from our quiet, seventh floor hotel room into the alley on which our hotel is located, it was like the curtain suddenly rising on a spectacular Asian market scene designed by a great stage director.

Yen Thai Alley is about two city blocks long and 15 feet wide, lined with shop/living rooms, small hotels, restaurants and filled for its entire length with street vendors of meat, fish, vegetables and all the necessities of life. And this variety, color and density of activity is duplicated on most of the streets of the large, surrounding Old Quarter. It's the liveliest street scene I've ever seen. Everywhere you go you see people sitting on low baby stools eating food prepared by small sidewalk food stalls. Whole streets are dedicated to a single kind of product such as silk, shoes, toys etc. Scooters and cars weave there way miraculously through all this. Overall, I sense a great harmonious flow of life in the city.

There is a remarkable mutual awareness in the behavior of drivers, scooter drivers, bicycle riders and pedestrians. One soon gets used to crossing a stream of traffic which at first looks impassable, secure in the knowledge that you are seen and avoided with skill and grace.

Yen Thai Street, the alley where our hotel is located.

No cars allowed - just scooters, bicycles and people. That's one of our hotel doormen in red, standing in the hotel entrance.

Alley action

Utensil Seller

Diners

Food seller

Fish dealer

Freshening up the merchandise

Shops on the silk street, six out of many

Sample of traffic at a tiny intersection, shot from our position in a second-floor bar.