(VOVworld) – During his stay in Vietnam, Kham La, a tourist from Laos said he was particularly impressed by Hanoi’s street vendors and their cries. Many foreign tourists are fascinated by the cries of the vendors who roam the streets of Hanoi. 

The swooshing sound of the bamboo brooms of street cleaners and the cries of street vendors signal sunrise in Hanoi. The cries awaken Hanoi citizens to begin a new day. Every day, at 5.30AM in the summer and 6AM in the winter, wearing a conical hat on her head and a face mask, Ms. Thuy, a street vendor, rides her old bicycle through all the alleys of Hai Ba Trung district selling rice cakes. She has to wake up at 3AM to boil the cakes. She said: “I’ve been doing this for 6 or 7 years and I earn as much as 100 USD a month. This is a difficult job because I have to stay up late and wake up early to prepare the cakes. I rarely have a day off unless I’m sick.”

Street vending has existed in Hanoi for hundreds of years. Vendors used to carry loads at the two ends of a pole to sell a variety of food such as snail noodles, sticky rice and bread. Now they use bicycles to go around. Hanoi has thousands of street vendors and junk collectors, who are poor laborers from the outskirts of Hanoi and adjacent provinces. Their cries are now amplified by loudspeakers. Ta Van Hien of Hai Duong province goes everyday on his old bicycle to collect junk throughout Hanoi: “I used to have frequent sore throats because I used my voice to cry out. Now I record my voice on a tape and play it with a loudspeaker. This is very cost effective.”

Kham La says he buys food from street vendors not because he needs it but he likes to hear their cries. For many Hanoians, buying food from street vendors has become a habit. Mr. Binh of Bach Mai street says: “I often buy breakfast from street vendors because it is very convenient and I don’t have to go anywhere. I sometimes sell them junk and old electronic devices.”

The cries are very diverse in Hanoi’s Old Quarter. Whether they are live voices or tape recordings, the cries are a typical feature of Hanoi that is unknown anywhere else. The cries give Hanoi tourists an unforgettable memory of this city with its thousand years of culture and civilization.

Dieu Hong