A Hanoi flower for you

In a lush, green country where nearly anything will grow it’s no surprise that flowers abound, cheap.

Yes, a guy can talk about flowers, or at least he would be wise to do so considering the vast assurances that a handful of them can provide in his relationship.

With that in mind, I rose the other day at 4:45am (that’s four-forty-five-a-m) dashed out the door, and rode my leased Angel Hi out Duong Nghi Tam (the Dike Road after Truc Bac Lake), just past the Sheraton, to catch the market at the peak of its activity. Did I mention it was raining?

The selling starts sometime in the pre-dawn darkness when bundles of flowers come in from the fields by lorry, cart, and all other manner of rolling vehicle.

It reaches peak activity around 5am and packs up around 7am when the hordes of flower sellers make their way back into Hanoi with the stock they’ve purchased, which they will sell from shops or pedal bikes o­n the street.

As the glimmer of sunrise was just appearing in the eastern sky I arrived just in time to see the last of the tables heaped with yellow, white, orange and red bundles under the glare of electric lamps overhead.

There were banana flowers (thien dieu) and strangely coloured roses 50 or 60 to a bunch. There were also great heaps of what my limited knowledge identified as statice, a sort-of purple garnish, and baby’s breath (notice how I now have no trouble saying ‘baby’s breath.’).

Straight away I started holding up odd bunches of flowers I’d never seen before asking, “bao nhieu tien?” (how much?). The vendors leapt into action, replying with prices that most Westerners would regard as a misprint.

I was quoted a price of 60,000 dong for a handful of banana flowers, romantic by no means but just strange enough to make you want them strictly for their appearance, huge, shiny, bright orange, and beak-like in shape.

Then there was the large, white tubular thing that could o­nly have been a lily (I call everything I don’t recognise a lily) at 20,000 dong for what looked like six, again, not so romantic as they were intriguing.

The sun was reaching over the horison now and the rain was tapering off.

All the activity was moving to the large open space in front of the tents, where flower sellers were strapping o­nto their pedal bikes and motorbikes giant parcels of roses and the like to sell in the city at a modest markup, increasingly to me (note that) when I stop at the traffic light o­n Tho Nhuom between Hanoi Towers the Meliá.

I wove through the crowd of vendors who quietly lashed and tucked their cargo, chatting as they worked. It was certainly the nicest smelling job anyone could ask for.

The sky was light now and the novelty of shopping for bulk flowers at the crack of dawn was wearing off.

For some strange reason, I left empty-handed. I reckoned I’d seen a little-known morning ritual in Hanoi and that was enough. I wasn’t foolish enough to arrive home empty-handed, though.

There were still the vendors o­n Tho Nhuom, and at least now I knew more of the journey those flowers make to perform their special function.