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City streets in Vietnam are totally insane. Someone somewhere told us that the nationwide ratio of people to motorcycles is 4:1. With a basic understanding of statistics, you might then assume that the remaining 3/4 of the population walks, or owns a bike or car, or doesn't live in an urban area, but no-- the remaining 3/4 of the population just rides on the back.
I'd never been to a country before where solid double lines in the middle of the road have little-to-no meaning, and "stop at the stop sign" is only a suggestion. In this zoo of transportation, we had several hair-raising near-death experiences, not counting every time we had to cross the street.
There was the one in Hanoi who had no idea where he was going and wouldn't stop the car to let us out, so we had to jump out in the middle of the road at a rare traffic light-mediated intersection. There was the one in Bangkok who cut across five lanes of traffic, repeatedly, in order to avoid entrances to the toll road, cars speeding slower than he was, and who knows what else. In Siem Riep we had a cabbie drive us through a small river when he saw that the bridge was down. But the kicker is this-- on the way to the airport in Ho Chi Minh City, our cab driver nearly hit a nun. I swear to you. There was a nun crossing the street and our cabbie nearly hit her.
I think that's the end of the story.
Posted by lauren at September 8, 2003 09:28 AM | TrackBack