The market place

I am making a habit of going to the market on Saturday or Sunday morning to buy my produce, rather than going after school because of the vibrancy of the market place.  I love the opportunity to browse, and purchase. The market, like every other market in Vietnam sells the whole gambit of wares from produce, meat and fish, cooked food, flowers, hardware, clothes, fabric, shoes, pharmaceuticals, suitcases etc etc. The market is your one stop shop. The food outlets and perishable items are housed under makeshift tarpaulins around the side and back streets. These tarpaulins of course help to protect, both the seller, produce and purchaser from the sun, and of course the rain, The meat sellers pack up their wares around noon and leave, with some returning later in the day to catch the tea trade. The vege and fruit sellers remain. The fish mongers are really interesting with the live specimens flapping and floating in bowls of ice. Frogs too are on show. The Vietnamese want to see the live creature, fish or frog, before they purchase. 

Today I purchased:

1x broccoli

4x carrots

5 x tomatoes = 47,000 Dong = $2 - $2.50 NZ

1 garlic clove = 5,000 Dong = 25 cents

1x pineapple = 12,000 Dong = 60 cents

500 g pork mince = 30,000 Dong $1.50 NZ

6x bananas = 10,000 Dong =50 cents

Total 94,000 Dong just over $5.00

The cost of living is very cheap in Vietnam, and the overheads for the stall holders also very cheap. Anyone can set up wherever on the footpath and sell food, frequently from the back of a bike or cart. No food seller on the street or in a  makeshift building has a certificate of health and hygiene. No such thing exists in Vietnam. Commercial restaurants have certification. Regulating against the small one and two person street seller would be neigh on impossible. The city is so huge, the numbers of sellers so huge, and the flexibility of adapted carts, and bikes selling food makes it so easy to move along quickly. To regulate and licence would quite possibly deny thousands of woman a meagre income. On the flip side of regulation and lose of street vendors would also deny a huge percentage of the population, cooked food and an eating space.  Eating in Vietnam is very much a social occasion, and what a better place to do so than on the footpath where they have space. On the walk from my apartment to the intersection a total of 100m, on a good day you would find 6 food sellers, each with 6 – 10 eating chatting consumers.

Tonight for tea I’m cooking pork meatballs on spaghetti, with veg. Visitors welcome.