Lilliput street food

Been on holiday for the last few weeks, touring in Vietnam and Cambodia. It was a thoroughly fascinating experience, two countries I'd never visited before and two countries that are going through the most arduous of recoveries from brutal 20th century dictators and civil war. There are still lot's of social and political issues in both places but I found the people there utterly remarkable, and unreasonably friendly towards tourists and Westerners in general.

First stop was Hanoi, in the North of Vietnam. The original capital of the communist regime lead by the indefatigable Ho Chi Minh (who washed dishes in a hotel in West Ealing during the 1910's) and the centre of resistance (backed by the Russians) to the influence of the capitalist regime in the South backed by the USA, the classic "proxy war". Eventually civil war broke out between the North and the South and the Americans sent troops and munitions to help the South leading to the Vietnam war in the late 1960's until 1975 when the South Vietnamese and their American allies were defeated. Hanoi was bombed heavily by the Americans during the war and there are many old scars left of this time, there's even the visible corpse of a B52 bomber laying in a lake in the middle of the city, a surreal sight retained for posterity (see picture below).

Modern Hanoi is an assault on the senses, smells, noise, hustle, bustle and a population similar to that of London at around 8 million. It's a big place and crazy busy in the narrow streets between old French colonial government buildings, densely populated dwellings and shops and shiny new glass and steel offices. Most people get around on mopeds and it takes a while to get used to the "flow", initially streets seem impossible to traverse due to the sheer weight of traffic but eventually you realise that the trick is  to simply walk out and "weave" in between the passing bikes whose riders are highly skilled at avoiding pedestrians! The worst thing you can do is hesitate or stop mid-flow, it confuses the hell out of the natives and invites their wrath, there's a zen like pleasure to be had from crossing a busy intersection here, I was reminded of Neo avoiding bullets in the film "The Matrix".

Most activity in Hanoi seems to happen out on the street, eating, drinking, trading and general "living" is done there, most of the pavements are completely occupied by parked scooters and impromptu barbers, bakers, butchers and vendors of knock-off branded tee shirts, luggage, clothing and trainers. A perfect copy of a "North Face" tee shirt (even with correctly branded internal labels) will set you back £3 or £2.50 with a bit of haggling. I snapped the picture below of a street food vendor selling BBQ octopus legs, various amphibians and a variety of other things that I didn't even recognise! As you can see everyone is wearing coats, the weather in Hanoi isn't too hot at this time of year, around 16-18C we felt quite at home, a feeling that was to change as we headed further South.

Because of the limited space (and the rather small average stature of the people) street restaurants and bars typically have tiny little plastic chairs to sit on. This is strange at first, a bit like parents open evening at the infants school, but you get used to it. I snapped the picture at the top of the page at one of the major intersections in the middle of the city, it's a plastic chair vendor selling his wares, I'm not that tall (just over 6 feet) but I must admit I felt like that bloke in Lilliput sometimes (note, pedestrians are forced to walk in the road!)..