Roadside Vietnam

Travel Story by Danielle Bell

Nha Trang, Vietnam

"You buy something?"

"Cheap, cheap!"

"What you want?"

Thus, the well-practiced cries of Vietnamese vendors to wary white foreigners, where language barriers on both sides halt any further hope of conversation.

Street-market stalls peddling everything from fish-filled pastries to sweet rice wrapped in banana leaves and Louis Vuitton knock-offs are crushed into every corner.

Alongside cheap plastic chairs scattered in front of makeshift menus of poor english, mom-and-pop style markets tout the usual sodas, chips and cigarettes.

Children, who by western standards would be watching late-night cartoons or curled up in bed, feverishly bag cans of sweaty Red Bull and wrap cheap bottles of liquor in newsprint for tourists eager to spend their over-inflated dollars.

Mattresses with thin sheets are crudely sandwiched together to form makeshift beds in the unlit backrooms of the Vietnamese-style 7-11's, where diaper-swaddled toddlers can be seen sleeping from the street.

They are the lifeblood of the locals, where few vacant grocery stores sell similar wares too expensive for those who work 12-hour days for a paltry couple of dollars.

Milk is sold in cardboard cartons in rows along the hot pavement, sharing the sidewalk with stacks of mixed eggs, assorted bitter melons, and a multi-colored Mecca of cheap sandals.

Old men sit in front playing chess and swigging cold bottles of Saigon beer, while women carrying babies slung across their backs sell postcards of Old City Vietnam, or boil endless pots of noodle soup.

Cookie-cutter rows of identical hole-in-the-wall shops make a loyalty to one futile, as bartering for a cheaper price is expected, though it may mean that they don't have enough small change to give back.

You won't find butter or syrup or Doritos at most, and you'd be hard-pressed to search for anything beyond one-size-fits-all T-shirts and shorts, or even a nail file. Yet these shops are still there, still surviving, still standing under sun-strangled clapboard roofs.

More pop up everyday, made recognizable by wobbly shelves threatening to crumble under the weight of haphazardly stacked bags of laundry soap, cans of vegetables and clear sacks of unmarked sweets.

As the sun surrenders behind looming towers of far-away hotels and resorts, the prickly heat permeates the open sewers and a noticeable stench emanates from the black and crumbly streets. It soon battles with the tingly hints of cooking smoke, rubber from squealing motorbike tires and wet strays filtering back from beachside romps to curl up in skinny balls in front, scrounging through scraps.

Futile attempts are made to drive away the mice and rats and cockroaches holing up in dark corners, where the thickness of a layer of dust is the only way to know how long a bottle of hairspray or jar of peanuts has been living.

Amid the tonal frenzy of excited Vietnamese talking as they pass the stalls to meet friends in dark bars, the broken english of the vendors can still be heard late into the night...stopping only when someone pauses to buy the odd bar of soap for tomorrow's shower, or a cold can of coke to dispel the steamy night's heat.

"You buy something?"

"Cheap, cheap!"

"What you want?"

Read more about the author of this story:
Danielle Bell