getBytes in perl ?!?

Hello,

Do you know if there is in Perl the function "getBytes" in Java ?
I would like to convert a "string" to bytes in perl.

the idea could be :
$mystring="Hello EveryBody. How are you ?";
$mybytes = getBytes($mystring);
$mybytes="0x3C3F786D6C2076657273696F6E3D22312E"; #something like

Perl Version : 5.6.1
Apparently, I do not have the "Encode.pm" in my libraries.

Thank you by advance,
Regards,
jc