I set out to go to the night market, this evening. I have good memories of the night market in KL, which used to be an excellent place to haggle for cheap rip-offs of designer goods, so I wanted to see whether this one was in the same vein. I also knew that I’d get another chance to practice my food ordering skills.

The street market is in the heart of the Old Quarter, on Phô Hàng Dào. It was a mixture of designer rip offs (I was quite tempted by a pair of Apple buds, but couldn’t summon my haggling strengths!). (Also. The thing about rip-off Ray Bans/* is they’re only really tempting if you don’t have a genuine pair…) Anyway. Mixture of designer rip offs, tourist tat, and cheap hippy trousers. But lots of lovely street food stalls! I’ve eaten a pork kebab, some shrimp gyoza and a deep fried crab roll. All for less than a fiver. Oh. And something called smoke ice cream, which is basically oversized Rice Krispies with some food colouring dipped in dry ice. Weird. And tasteless. But now I know…

Anyway, I ended up back at the Bach Ma temple. Which had a really strange street performance going on outside it. This was my first indication that something was afoot in the streets of Hanoi, this evening. I made a little video of it, because I’m a generous soul and I don’t believe in suffering alone… I’m particularly fond of the little boy flossing, in the background…

By the time he’d got this far into it, I was reconsidering my life choices in a fairly major way, so I moved along…

The next alley along from this is the tourist pub spot. The one with Black Jack’s in it. Nothing smells of regret like a bar with a tattoo shop in it. They were doing a lively trade tonight, though I couldn’t say which counter was taking the most money…

The whole alley was rammed. Like the stage area at a festival, but with added restaurant touts thrusting pictorial menus at you and urging you to eat outside their fine establishment. I resisted their advances, and pressed through the throng to find this (I know it looks like it’s going to be a video of people’s arses. I promise you it’s not!):

They were far better than the video suggests. I would even consider paying to see them – except I don’t know who they were.

I headed down to the lake, in search of some breeze, and suddenly found myself in party central! I had assumed the road closures around the city were for the night market, but it became obvious there was Something Going On. Nobody English speaking seemed to know what, but there were people selling fairy light headbands, giant bubble guns, light sabres and ice creams. Oh, and things like sparkly bouncing jacks. Do you remember jacks??

And then there were performances. Everywhere. Some dancing, some singing. Few professional, but many popular. The dance classes I’d seen earlier in the week seemed to be writ large:

But the kids were at it, too – with varying degrees of conviction, it has to be said. Contrast the commitment of the lad in the red shirt with the girl in the white sweatshirt (who was definitely part of his group, despite occasional appearances to the contrary!) and then the little girl, who appeared from the crowd and just joined in, in a way that makes me think they’re recreating a video by one of your modern beat combos, so beloved by the young people…

Anyway. When I go home, I asked Uncle Google what the actual fuck.., and it seems it might be a celebration of the Hung Kings. So that explains it!

I got the feeling they were all just getting into the swing of whatever it was, but the heat got to me and I headed home. Seems I wasn’t *quite* the only one.

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