Thuý, 53, rides through the UNESCO Her­itage site, Hoi An Ancient Town. Locat­ed along the banks of the Thu Bon riv­er in Cen­tral Viet­nam, Hoi An is a small town that boomed for hun­dreds of years as an inter­na­tion­al trad­ing port.

Every morn­ing at 7 AM Thuý cooks ốc lễ (sea snails) and rides around Hoi An, sell­ing them to locals from the red buck­et on her bicy­cle. Trav­el­ing street food ven­dors are a com­mon sight across Viet­nam, sell­ing a smor­gas­bord of deli­cious foods. All from what I like to call, their “self-con­tained mobile restau­rants”. It’s some­thing I’d nev­er seen before com­ing to Viet­nam. A charm­ing part of Viet­namese culture.

For most of her life, Thuý has been a street food ven­dor In Hoi An. “Sell­ing sea snails has been my job for more than 2 decades. In the past, in addi­tion to sell­ing snails, I sold clams and corn too.”

She has wit­nessed the trans­for­ma­tion of Hoi An since it became a tourist des­ti­na­tion. “Since there has been more tourist in the Old Town, peo­ple dec­o­rate it so it is more beau­ti­ful now.” Dec­o­ra­tions that aim to enhance the charm of the well-pre­served her­itage site.

The unique old town charm lives on in Hoi An’s build­ings and peo­ple. A small cap­sule of a time long since gone.