If you want to walk in Hanoi, you might have to walk in the street, not on the sidewalk, because most of the sidewalks in Hanoi are for business or parking, not for walking.
Generally, foreigners are delighted by the “sidewalk life” in Hanoi when they see it for the first time. Hanoi people sell everything on the city sidewalks. Goods spill onto the sidewalks from inside the shops. Sidewalk vendors sell noodles, fruits, ice cream…and above all, tea. Everywhere there are sidewalk ice tea shops where people sit on small plastic chairs, drinking tea and chatting for hours.
If you still insist on walking on the sidewalk in Hanoi, you might have to follow a snakelike path, walking on the sidewalk for a short time, detouring into the street to avoid a shop, jumping up to escape the motorbike traffic, only to jump back down again to get around a parking lot…
Two years ago, Hanoi authorities decided to allow motorbike parking in the streets. It made walking more of a challenge. You couldn’t step off the sidewalk into the street because there were so many motorbikes in the way!
More recently, they came up with a better idea: letting motorbikes park on the sidewalk. The reason given was that there was a lack of parking space.
Now pedestrians often have to walk in the street with the moving motorbikes, cars, buses… And sometimes, if you’re not careful, you can get “branded” on your leg if you wear shorts and brush your leg up against the hot exhaust pipe of a motorbike parked on the sidewalk.
Many Vietnamese people now have the traditional Hanoi burn mark on their leg. If you don’t believe it, come to Hanoi and try walking on our sidewalks a few times...
