Hanoi Shopping Streets

We spent a day wandering the streets of Hanoi, which are crazy, crowded, and dynamic. It is accurate to say we wandered the streets, because in the old quarter district of Hanoi, the sidewalks are strictly for motorcycle parking or vending. Pedestrians take their chances on the street.

The retail areas are remarkably well organized. for my New Westie friends who lament too many wedding shops for one city blog, you need to see the retail districts of Hanoi. Long stretches are dominated by a single retail purpose. We found ourselves wandering through the home electronics district:

...the shoe district...

The Chinese lantern district...

...and the Christmas decoration district.

After that we passed through the blacksmith district...

...which should not be confused with the sheetmetal district.

There were some cool things in the ornate decorative woodwork district, and we thought about buying, when we realized they delivered:

Although we were less tempted in the rolls of adhesive tape district.

Only at the larger markets are goods more mixed, do you want eels, turtles, frogs, or snakeheads? All available at your one-stop live food stop:

Instead, we stopped at a hole-in-the-wall spot with three plastic tables, and three ladies out front putting various dumplings and other things into a rigged deep-fryer. With some hot sauce and beers, it was a delicious, if not dietetic, lunch. We're pretty sure it was pork and seafood, but wouldn't bet on it.

While on the topic of Tig sitting in hole-in-the-wall places eating great food, here is a Pho version:

There is much more to see in Hanoi than shopping and eating, and sights we saw today, which I guess I will have to write about later. For now, we are headed back out to see a puppet show, so little time.
Starting tomorrow,we will be spending a few days on a junk off the coast, and swimming and beach options might be limited due to a rainy forecast, then hop a train down the coast towards Hue. I suspect there will be no blog updates during that time, as WiFi-enabled sailing craft might be too much to hope for.
And we still need to figure out where we will be at Christmas.

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