Gam Cau Street, literally meaning “under the bridge”, is separated from Hanoi’s Old Quarter by the century-old Long Bien Bridge. Gam Cau Street used to be a ghetto haven sought out by people of mixed backgrounds: the countryside migrants, salesmen, smugglers, bricklayers, unemployed, homeless, addicts, hustlers. In Vietnamese there is a word for a place like this — xóm bụi, or hamlet of the dust.

I shot this video while resting at a tea vendor’s at Arch 131 - the last arch of Gam Cau street, just across the Long Bien train station. 

On assignment, July 2017. 

Read about Gam Cau street and Hanoi’s Master Plan to renovate it here.