Minh's

When it comes to people watching, Minh’s is the place. Second floor patio jutting out over Dinh Liet street, one of the main thoroughfares that begins just above Hoan Kiem lake and cuts north-south through the old quarter.

After a year of coming here, I’m known by the teenaged staff, who greet me in Vietnamese with the familiar “Chao chi,” designating me as older sister in the social heirarchy. I order in the native language and do my best with the usual pleasantries: How are you? Very hot today, isn’t it? How is business?

The clientele is divided into three categories starting with the expats, mostly hourly-wage language school teachers who come after their last evening class at 10pm for a cold Heinekin and a cheap meal.

Next are the sweat-shiny backpackers, following the trail of all lonely planet die-hards who trade travel talk over the ubiquitous plates of fried rice and spring rolls. Half of these are FOB’s straight from the islands with scorched noses and self-consciously fastened sarongs while the other half, having been in Vietnam for at least a few days, sport red t-shirts emblazoned with the yellow star of the Vietnamese flag or crisply pressed custom-tailored outfits made of gaudy-colored Chinese silk.

The last third are tables of Vietnamese, either middle-aged men who gulp pints of fresh beer like water and steal curious glances at the blonde spaghetti-strapped western females all around, or tables of young language students making barefaced attempts to eavesdrop on the English-language table-talk on either side.

Below life chugs and churns regardless of the time of day. This is a country of sidewalk commerce. Just outside her front door, a woman sets out low plastic tables and small stools, the sort of indestructible furniture you find in any day-care center. People of all shapes and sizes squat on the stools and drink the fresh juices she makes in a blender plugged into the extension cord that runs back into her house behind. Her mother sits beside her as chaperone, fanning herself with a huge straw fan.

Next door another woman pours out small cups of iced tea and sells individual drags of tobacco from a long wooden pipe. At the end of the block, a man sits on a decrepit recliner he’s dragged out onto the sidewalk, a bicycle pump and tool box on either side. For 1,000 dong he’ll make repairs to your bicycle while you relax on his colonial-era lazy-boy.

With the sidewalk space taken up by these vendors, everyone else spills out onto the road: bicycles and babies and bystanders; a group of camera-toting Germans squeezed into cyclos inch their way south; women balancing poles across their shoulders beckon with baskets of bananas and freshly cut pineapple on either end; trios of military men in army-green uniforms and officious-looking epaulets step in unison.

Motobikes dodge pedestrians at impossible angles and equally impossible speeds. Newbies stand at the curb waiting for the opportunity to cross while the locals wade in without batting an eye. The occasional car makes a kamikaze attempt at squeezing through the confusion, parting the sea of chaos like some four-wheeled Moses.

My bill at the end of each meal: 30,000 dong ($2) for fresh shrimp rolls and a plate of veggies, steamed rice, and a draft beer.

That’s what I call cheap entertainment.