Zelma’s Trip

Although in its title this may sound a bit of a strange entry but believe
me journeys by road here are enough to fill an entire library. The roads
are absolutely crazy. Katie Mehlua got it wrong when she sang about
bicycles in Berlin, I might write to her and suggest she pen, “mad
motorbikes and psychotic scooters in Saigon”. Honestly until you witness
it for yourself it is hard to describe. Firstly the sheer volume of
traffic is unbelievable. On one of my tours the guide said that,”It’s
always rush hour in Saigon” and he was not joking.  He also told us another story which happened when one of the buses he was in hit a bike.  The Police pulled the bus over and the Policeman asked the driver two questions.  The first was, “Did you see the red light?”, to which the driver answered, “Yes.”.  The second was, “Why didn’t you stop” to which the driver answered, “because I didn’t see you”.  Both of these anecdotal tales seem to sum up the road situation rahter well!

 They (allegedly) drive
on the right here, but don’t by any means think that that means they all
do. The one rule seems to be that you sound your horn almost
continuously. It doesn’t seem to be used in an aggressive way, more in a,
“I’m a vehicle on the road and I have a horn” way. Okay, that wasn’t
meant to sound quite as ominous as it did. Despite the, what seems like
mayhem, I haven’t actually seen any accidents yet which, believe me, is
somewhat of a shock. Actually I did see a bike run someone’s foot over
but that hardly classifies as a major road traffic incident!

The other slightly odd thing here which I have never seen before is countdowns on the traffic lights.  Above the red light there is a digital display (well LEDs) which countdown the number of seconds before the lights either change to green or red.  I would have thought that this in itself was asking for trouble but someone obviously thought it a good idea in their wisdom!

When I got into the taxi at the airport I had to make a decision. I am
normally a rubbish passenger as my family, and possibly a few other people
who have ever had the misfortune of driving me anywhere, will testify. So
I had to decide whether I was going to get insanely nervous or just
concede that the roads were like this here, I may die, I may not, but it
may aswell be from an accident rather than a heart attack! I chose the
latter and since this point have been surprisingly relaxed about the whole
roads situation. That said I have forgotten on occasion. Like when we
got back into the tour bus once and I thought, “Oh My GOD, what’s
happened, why is everyone beeping like mad”, then, within an instant,
remembered that this was normal and that, in fact, I should be far more
disturbed if people weren’t beeping.

In terms of crossing the road you just have to be assertive and go. I
made the mistake of waiting for a space for a short while. This resorted
in me either standing on the roadside for a VERY long time or friendly
locals worrying that I might sink into the melting tarmac and assisting me
across the road. It still amazes me slightly that you can cross the road
pretty much when you like and that everything avoids you. I think that
one of the reasons for this, and the fact that there are not more
accidents, is the fact that no-one really drives that fast. This appears
to be more down to the vehicular limitations than the want of the driver.

Perhaps the most eventful event on the road thus far was a blow out in our
coach on the way back from the tour to the Mekong Delta. I was listening
to my Ipod at the time and thought that it had gone wrong! There wasn’t
any swerving or anything just a loud noise. Apparently there was a
problem with the spare (i.e. they didn’t have one!) so they took the tyre
to get it fixed. Miraculously, given the shredded state of the said tyre,
it came back looking roadworthy and got us all the way back to Saigon.

On the same journey I reset my Ipod as it wasn’t doing what I wanted it
to. In hindsight I wasn’t asking it properly but at the time I thought it
was being petulant! Anyway, when I reset it it reverted to Chinese! If
any of you have ever had to try and decipher a menu in another language
(particularly one without the same character set as your own) you will
understand the frustration and timeliness of sorting it out. I got there
in the end though and it proved a welcome distraction from blown out
tyres!

Finally, and after that slight ramble, I arrived at my hotel and checked in.