Hanoi Traffic
Its so crazy, and folks are so stupid. People will speed and duck and weave through the traffic with no helmet AND talking on the mobile phone. Its got its own order, sure, learned through experience and social conditioning, but dont be fooled! The road markings create the false impression that they are there for a reason other than to impress westerners.
My friend Lee told me a story about a woman, who, while zipping along on her honda Wave and talking on the phone, lost total control. She pulled a 90 degree turn, mounted the curb and knocked over 2 parked motor scooters. Panicking, she wrenched the handle bars around and ripped open the throttle. This sent her back onto the road at full speed, she holds this direction, cutting across all the traffic on Hang Bai street, which is NEVER less than 20 motor scooters wide, mounts the opposite curb, and flies into the open doors of a shop selling large flat screen televisions. Gosh I wish I could have seen that!
Size matters on the streets. If you're bigger then honk your horn until whoever gets the F@ck out of your way. I cant stop thinking that its some extension of the class based society. Its so expensive to own a car or a truck, and if you're driving one, then you are representing wealth and status.
Coming from Australia, and being a guy who respects the individual, intrinsic qualities of a person and not their birth status, the horn honking irritates the SH!T out of me! I've never considered myself a road rager.. and I've NEVER seen it on the streets of Hanoi.. however there is a little devil inside my head who, whenever I hear the loud impatient honk of a car horn behind me(even though the lights are STILL red and theres 40 other motorscooters in front of me), tells me to get off the bike, stride up to the car, reach into the window, and SMASH his f@cking skull against the steering wheel until the honking mechanism breaks, and he can bother me no more.
OK, with that out of my system, I'm nearly finished up with my first month on the road. I've had a crappy no-name brand rental scooter for practice. The engine is not timed, and it always stops when cold.. also the breaks aint that great. But if I crash it, then its not very expensive to replace.
With my newly developed experience and confidence with hanoi traffic. I'm ready to upgrade into something a little more stylish. The Honda Wave is the big rage here at the moment. But thats not me. I'm thinking something a little bigger... perhaps a yamaha Jupiter.. Definitely somethng in shiny red, or bright bumble Bee yellow.
My friend Lee told me a story about a woman, who, while zipping along on her honda Wave and talking on the phone, lost total control. She pulled a 90 degree turn, mounted the curb and knocked over 2 parked motor scooters. Panicking, she wrenched the handle bars around and ripped open the throttle. This sent her back onto the road at full speed, she holds this direction, cutting across all the traffic on Hang Bai street, which is NEVER less than 20 motor scooters wide, mounts the opposite curb, and flies into the open doors of a shop selling large flat screen televisions. Gosh I wish I could have seen that!
Size matters on the streets. If you're bigger then honk your horn until whoever gets the F@ck out of your way. I cant stop thinking that its some extension of the class based society. Its so expensive to own a car or a truck, and if you're driving one, then you are representing wealth and status.
Coming from Australia, and being a guy who respects the individual, intrinsic qualities of a person and not their birth status, the horn honking irritates the SH!T out of me! I've never considered myself a road rager.. and I've NEVER seen it on the streets of Hanoi.. however there is a little devil inside my head who, whenever I hear the loud impatient honk of a car horn behind me(even though the lights are STILL red and theres 40 other motorscooters in front of me), tells me to get off the bike, stride up to the car, reach into the window, and SMASH his f@cking skull against the steering wheel until the honking mechanism breaks, and he can bother me no more.
OK, with that out of my system, I'm nearly finished up with my first month on the road. I've had a crappy no-name brand rental scooter for practice. The engine is not timed, and it always stops when cold.. also the breaks aint that great. But if I crash it, then its not very expensive to replace.
With my newly developed experience and confidence with hanoi traffic. I'm ready to upgrade into something a little more stylish. The Honda Wave is the big rage here at the moment. But thats not me. I'm thinking something a little bigger... perhaps a yamaha Jupiter.. Definitely somethng in shiny red, or bright bumble Bee yellow.
posted by Pseudomys at 8:29 PM
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