There are no school buses in Vietnam – kids must get to school on their own. This is a picture of parents on scooters waiting outside an elementary school for their children to be dismissedMost school children ride bicycles, and there are vast hordes of bicycles during commuting time. And there are a lot of kids! Our experience is that Asian people are superstitious. One guide book noted that the year of the dragon means good fortune – and in the most recent such year, virtually every woman of child-bearing age in Vietnam was pregnant! No wonder there are so many people in Asia!
Everybody is selling something. Capitalism rages. People have an extraordinary work ethic, often working 18 hours a day, 7 days a week. Some people make huge amounts of money. In one remote rural village, the one-room bamboo house had a dirt floor and walls that weren’t remotely water-proof, but there was a satellite dish receiver outside and a wide-screen TV on the wall! Those kids will grow up looking for a different world than their parents’.
This lady is preparing duck for the lunch crowd. Space is at a tremendous premium. We saw many small restaurants where food was prepared and cooked, and dishes were subsequently washed, right on the sidewalk.
Here is an outdoor barber shop...
...and this is an outdoor beauty shop. Can you imagine women in America sitting in public waiting for their hair dye to set?
We loved Bobby Chinn’s restaurant in Hanoi. He’s an American ex-Pat, very successful restaurateur, self-described “enfant terrible.” His cookbook is stream of consciousness prose about Vietnam, with some recipes stirred in. From stories, some momentous world decisions have been made in his restaurant. We ate there twice, talked to him both times, and found him pleasant; his food and drink were outstanding!
Vietnamese people are not large. Fran estimated one woman was a size -2. I didn’t think she was that big. As my height shrinks, it was refreshing to still be among the tallest people in the crowd!
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