Street Doughnut @ Hanoi, Vietnam
Hanoi in Vietnam is crazy in comparison to Sydney. It’s obvious laws that we take for granted here don’t exist there. For example, you’d never catch anyone in Sydney walking around with a basket selling food to tourists.
I decided I had to try one of the doughnut-type things some Vietnamese women were selling from baskets in the Hanoi Old Quarter.
I approached one such lady and asked her how much for one. She didn’t have much English and I had zero Vietnamese. She started stuffing one of each doughnut into a plastic bag. I tried to explain I didn’t want all that. I only wanted one. I knew straight away what she was thinking… “This guy’s an idiot. Who buys one?”
She got angry with me and took off.
I found another lady with an identical basket. She was happy to sell me one – a sale is a sale, I suppose.
I asked, “How much?’ She wanted 10,000 dong, which is about Aus 62 cents. Geez, I’m not Bill Gates. I offered 5,000 dong. She wasn’t keen, but I turned to my wife to see what sort of small notes she had and I think the woman thought I was turning away from the sale altogether. So, she said she’d take 5,000 dong.
I got my doughnut and before I could say, “Can I have a receipt for that, please?” she was gone.
It was a bit stale, probably sitting in her basket for who knows how long. But I’m glad I tried it.
I wondered what the deal is with the doughnut-selling women, so I googled it. They could be mistaken for tourists traps according to this article. And there are a few items on tripadvisor telling the same story. Well, if they are tourists traps, they aren’t making much out of it.
DomNuts 