The Streets of Hanoi

Traveling around Hanoi for the last few days, I have noticed that there are streets that are devoted to different activities. Today, I encountered a toy street, an office supply street, a ceramics street, a metal cage street, etc. I have also noticed in the last few days, a purse street, a shoe street, a backpack street, a suitcase street, and various restaurant and cafe streets. There's a stuff made out of bamboo street. There is a cemetery headstone street.

I was walking down the street, and some woman came up to me and put her shoulder yoke, with two loads balanced on each end, on my shoulder and said to me, "Carry." I was surprised at how light it was, considering that there was a lot of stuff in the carrying buckets on each end, and it was well-balanced. It seemed lighter than the backpack I carry around. But I quickly said to her, "No, no", and gave it back to her. I have no idea why she did that.

But then a second woman tried to load me up with her shoulder yoke, and she said, "Picture". So I guess the deal is that they will take your picture with the shoulder yoke on, and then you give them a small payment.

I stopped in a pharmacy to see what they had available. It looked like you could buy just about anything without a prescription. They even had effervescent tablets, like Alka-Seltzer, that you dissolve in liquid, and have 30 mgs of codeine in them.