Marketed.

Bright Nights, Big City.

Hanoi, Vietnam – A bumblebee-sized micro-copter buzzed overhead, its blue LED lights pulsing against the night sky.

They kept pace with the rapid heartbeat of electronic music thumping out of a clothing store, its half-open maw of a metal shutter door spilling contents over the sidewalk like a lolling tongue.

On the weekend, a seemingly endless line of the Old Quarter's streets are transformed into a night market, and closed to traffic. Cars, anyway: motoscooters, of course, make like salmon, pushing their way upstream through tightly packed crowds out for a Friday evening.

The well-lit stalls seemed to continue forever, flaunting colourful trinkets and souvenirs, undergarments and Zippo lighters; jewellery, pastries, toys and t-shirts. The air, meanwhile, was punctuated by the warm smell of skewered meat, which sizzled in shallow woks drowned in oil.

A robotic drone from a loudspeaker warned to watch over your valuables, its formal tone repeated in three languages.

With locals dressing up for a date night stroll in the market, it's a microcosm of the colour, life and activity in the Old Quarter.

But watch your bags.