Vietnam

I have returned!

Vietnam was fun. Not as a place but I enjoyed myself on holiday, although my sisters and I kinda breathed a collective sigh of relief today at the knowledge that we would be home soon. It was nice just being with the family, squashing the 3 of us on one queen sized bed (where I finally demanded that I not sleep in the middle again on the last night), sneaking Dad into the rooms (so we would meet the 2 pax per room without paying for another room), watching glorious TV on the big screen and waking up late.

What is it about watching TV in hotels, anyway? Everything about the experience seems so much better when you're sitting in your hotel room, making you wish you had double the time to go out and still laze around. By the way, we didn't even catch a glimpse of any of the hotel facilities, much less use them.

The MAJOR thing about Vietnam is the road rules. There are no road rules.

The motorcycles outnumber the cars the way cockroaches outnumber humans in this world. (That's kinda my own postulation.) The entire road is full of people riding on bikes, while cars are the poor minority. Bike-riding is totally the lifestyle there, with whole families (usually up to 4 people) on one vehicle, and everyone wears a helmet just because the law says so, so you see all kinds of cute non-safety regulation little hats.

It's so lawless that there are only so few traffic lights (which not everyone follows anyway) and there's absolutely no right of way at roundabouts and junctions. Just go with the flow and keep braking, swerve left and right to avoid people, and generally don't go above 40 km/h. People weave in and out and the poor cars are constantly braking jerkily.

As a pedestrian, do the exact opposite as you normally would. It's best to just walk blindly, regular slow pace, and wait for the least amount of bikes on the road. They're masters of avoidance and will predict your walking pace so they won't hit you. I guess you could still look left and right, for some wayward bikers. There was this Caucasian motorcyclist (probably a newbie) who just stopped (probably paralyzed in fear) when we crossed in front of him and caused a horn honking riot from all the Vietnamese behind him.

Other than that, we just did the regular touristy thing: went on the Mekong River boat ride, stopped and saw a bunch of traditional practices, and visited the Cu Chi (Koochee-koochee koo!) Tunnels where there was exceptional propaganda going on. Nothing much to say there, especially after Facebook's showing everyone else's identical photo albums of Vietnam.

Will write more when I think of more. Turrah!