A closer view.
Always friendly, always willing to sell you whatever they have: lychees, rambutan, dragonfruit, mangos. The rule in Vietnam is that buyers are supposed to bargain over the price--politely and in a friendly fashion so that no one loses face--and although I did do some of that, when it came to the yoke ladies, I never really tried too hard. Covered to protect their skin from the sun, they walk and walk.
If I am not in the market for what they are selling, they smile and nod and move on, as do I.
One yoke lady who found me on a beach near Danang told me, "You no buy, I no eat. Babies no eat." I was going to buy some of her lychees anyway, and when I did, she squatted down next to me and ate them with me in a companionable silence, the two of us just smiling and looking out at what the Vietnamese call the East Sea (and what we know as the South China Sea).
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