Hanoi, the capital of Vietnam, is crammed with 9 million
people and is considered the governmental centre of Vietnam to Saigon’s
business capital. At first we wondered if staying at the hotel might be our best strategy, considering the life and death experience you encounter every time you dare to cross Hanoi’s busiest streets. The fast-paced hustle and energy of Vietnam’s capital and second biggest city, however, is electric and totally addictive.
What seemed almost as crazy was the local market, which we
travelled to in search of some trekking essentials before our hike in the
Vietnamese mountains, and then again after our return to find a replacement
shoelace and buttons.
This enormous market spanned dozens of blocks in all
directions, with each area having a certain specialization like building
supplies, textiles, kids wear, buttons etc.
There did seem some logic in this except that there is no way to find
out where the different sections were. It
took us almost two hours to find the “silk sleeping sheet” we hunted that was a
critical hygiene element for our trip.
And once we found them, we could then find 100 of them, which didn’t
seem to make for great bargaining power for the sellers. When we finally abandoned after 3 hours, we
still hadn’t been able to find the section with travel towels and settled with
buying one from the local grocery store instead.
As for the buttons and shoelaces, there was an overwhelming
number of them, with buttons being sold by the thousands. What was also in abundant supply were the
hiking knockoffs – with North Face, Under Armour, Nike, Supreme (or Suppeme as
it was sometimes spelled!) and other sports brands being well represented –
sometimes all on the same piece of clothing!
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