Looking down the length of the Hoàn Kiếm Night Market in the Old Quarter of Hà Nội
This stall sells tea sets - 6 miniature cups and a matching teapot
Night markets are popular in hot countries for obvious reasons. Hà Nội has its version which runs for nearly a kilometre from Hoàn Kiếm Lake to the Đồng Xuân market. The road is closed and the market is set up each evening from Thursday to Sunday at 6pm.
One of the most popular gifts from northern Vietnam is the Lacquer ware
[The low light means that people's movements lead to slight blurring making some images less than optimal - sorry]
Shoes
Perfumes
Lamps and scent dispensers
Surrounded by men's underwear, some stallholders seem far away
And some, as everywhere, seem phone bound
Pop-up cards - these hit the market 6 years ago, a flat card opens out to produce a 3-D model, now there are dozens of stalls with cards of everything from Happy Birthday to London's Tower Bridge. The woman to the right looks as though she might have had enough of customer's curiosity about them
Minimum working age?
Yes this guy is riding his bike through the crowds despite the many notices forbidding bikes - and a sprinkling of uniforms
Although security arrangements are not at all oppressive, there are both uniformed civilians, and traffic police on hand, but neither are famous for actively seeking work!
A van of the traffic police - mostly concerned to remove ill parked motorbikes
The civilian security personnel always have a certain air of disengagement
Behind a fruit seller a rubbish van at the Lake end of the market with the Hà Nội refuse slogan: "For the environment
Green - Clean - Beautiful"
Women, and it is always women, clean up amongst the crowds
Another official function in evidence is cleaning up behind the thousands of shoppers. The Vietnamese are excellent at this, public areas everywhere are cleaned daily and behind any mass gathering a small green army follows. An army needed because of the extraordinary ability of the Vietnamese to create litter!
The 'Shark Jaw' restaurant (maybe looking in the dark more like the end of a cruise ship) at the head of Hoàn Kiếm Lake, and the busy square in front of it, forms the south terminus of the market
Along the length of the market are a number of crossroads where the stalls stop and traffic can find its way across the closed street
The northern end of the market is defined by Hà Nội's biggest indoor market (Đồng Xuân) which closes at dusk as the Night Market takes over - but Đồng Xuân is dominated by wholesale activity, so the two markets serve very different functions
Maybe she wonders if the food will turn out to her liking...
Food preparation on a fast food stall
The selection of foods may be baffling to foreigners
This little stall offers 'Fruit Options' at about 60p a cup
Here the rolls are offered with hot Italian pate for 30p
Fast Food
A shopkeeper keeps a watchful eye on a Western customer who has come in from the crush of the open market
Watches at a shop entrance
Watches on a stall - the stall-holder's timepiece is more accurate!
The street is wide enough to accommodate back to back stalls down the centre, leaving a thoroughfare on either side with small kiosks and individual hawkers along the pavement next to the shops, many of which stay open on these evenings, sometimes selling similar items at higher prices, but also offering a range of other goods not available from the stalls
The adjustment of the images for display gives a slightly false sense of the light, this image gives a better idea of the stalls and the night that enrapts them
And then by dawn the next morning all is back to normal
And by full daylight the street has resumed its accustomed crowded chaos
The next page
takes you to Shark's Jaw Square onto which the Night Market opens just beside Hoàn Kiếm Lake
The last page had images of boats out of water
To the Indian town of Naini and some of its stallholders
Go to a page about the Sunday market at Bắc Hà
