Inside the Nightly Market That Feeds Hanoi

Each evening stall holders spend hours unloading and organizing their produce ready for the crowds that will arrive late into the night. Often, there is period of waiting once the stalls are ready: the calm before the storm.

While much of the market consists of indoor and outdoor stalls, a large area is reserved for trucks arriving from all over Vietnam. Once parked, they unload their haul directly into the hands of the punters offering the highest price.

The huge section of the market dedicated to fish has an odor that can be picked up from blocks away, even during the day. At night the road glistens with run-off from the stall’s overflowing containers.

Shrimp, one of Vietnam’s prized culinary ingredients, must be sorted by size and type before being sold. An army of workers—mostly women—diligently sift through endless baskets. With a flick of the wrist, shrimp flies through the air and into the appropriate plastic tub.

As the early morning light illuminates tired faces, the market is at its frenzied peak. Motorbikes weighed down with their bulging cargo crawl through the crowds of gesticulating bargain hunters and vocal stall holders as the narrow passageways become clogged with debris.

Gambling is illegal in Vietnam and carries a prison sentence of up to three years for anyone caught winning (or losing) 2 million or more Dong (about $90). This results in a thriving low-value underground gambling scene that can be observed in the quiet corners of the Long Bien Market.

While Long Bien is Hanoi’s largest fish market, Vietnam’s seafood industry is one of the world’s largest, exporting over $8 billion a year. In recent months however, it has been plagued with controversy after the EU presented Vietnam with a ‘Yellow Card’ for not doing enough to tackle illegal, unreported, and unregulated fishing.

Produce sold at the Long Bien market is brought from all over northern Vietnam. Some of it, however, is grown just a stone’s throw from the market on the floodplains of Hanoi’s Red River. This soft, fertile land found sandwiched between the two sides of the city is directly connected to the market by the iconic Long Bien bridge, the landmark which it is named after.

The Long Bien bridge is a rusted industrial relic of Vietnam’s French colonial past. Crossing the huge splintered waterway of the Red River, it carries trains, motorbikes and pedestrians 1.6 kilometers from central Hanoi across the water and into the city’s northern districts. During the Vietnam War, it was the only passage across the water, making it a constant, and often successful, target for American bombers.

As the afternoon sun casts long shadows over the market, street vendors can be found selling snacks to stall-holders, who by now have begun to prepare for the night ahead. Up to 11% of Hanoi’s workforce are ‘informal’ workers who make a living selling on the streets. Many of them arrive at Long Bien Market in the early hours of the morning to stock their quang ganh, a bamboo pole carried over the shoulder with two baskets hanging at either end.

Once the market has begun there is no time to organize practicalities, so stall-holders begin preparations early in the day. Whether washing containers, sorting produce, sealing polystyrene boxes or breaking up ice for displays, everything must be ready in good time.

The use of plastics in Vietnam is extensive and the scale of the market makes this all too visible. Nearby storage areas hold vast amounts of containers that are available to stall holders when needed.

Trucks full of produce arrive at the market late in the afternoon and signals the start of the rush to set up shop. Workers collaborate silently to assemble lighting rigs and construct the produce into small food-mountains.

After the hordes have gone, a cleaning staff clears up the estimated three tons of waste produced throughout the night. A sea of plastic, polystyrene, and food waste is swept up and packed into bags which are then collected by garbage trucks later in the day.

Throughout all these cyclical tasks, stall holders must still find time to rest. There is little opportunity to return home, so many will sleep at the market when possible.