Thursday, December 18, 2008
Put Your Faith in the Vietnamese
I learned last year in Hanoi that crossing a road in Vietnam can double your pulse. I also learned, though, that as the pedestrian you just need to move across the road deliberately and let the motorbike riders (and the cars and trucks and buses) watch for you and move around you.
The traffic here in Saigon/Ho Chi Minh City (use whichever you refer but everyone here has caled it Saigon,so I'm going with that) is about 8,000,000 times heavier, or so it seems. My tour guide, Trung, has been very good about guiding me across streets, and I'm cool with it now. But tonight he did something new: he put ME on the motorbike.
Now, admittedly, I wasn't driving, just riding along, but you should know that in the 42 years I've been alive I have never been on a motorcycle (I've decided tonight counts as a motorcycle even though they seem more like scooters on steroids). But I was a good boy and didn't wet my pants and after about 5 minutes I was totally into it. I realize that if you grow up driving in this environment you get used to it and develop that sixth sense that keeps you out of harm's way. I guess it's evolutionary in a sense: if you can't figure it out, you become roadkill, and dead people don't reproduce.
This has been a good trip, I'm glad I took it. I'm staying at the Hotel Caravelle, which has some history to it. My first day here we went on a short walking tour after I landed in the afternoon, then went for coffee and later Vietnamese barbeque. Wednesday we toured some of the city's historical attractions, then went for dinner and later visited a (or really, "the") predominantly-gay coffee house. Today we went down into the Mekong Delta and took a tour on the river, stopping off at a couple islands and hanging with some farmers and fishermen. On the drive back to Saigon we stopped for lunch at a restaurant where the manager was a very cute, gay friend of Trung's, so I got to chat with him for a bit. Tonight, of course, was the aforementioned motorbike time, including dinner, a drive around the city, and then coffee at a very fun place. Friday I'm headed for some tunnels.
I'm having a hard time imagining my Vietnamese-American friends at home in this city. I just feel like, even though there's a lot going on here, they'd be bored. Of course, that's after they've spent years in the US, so even though they still follow some customs from this culture, and also continue to speak to each other in this very cool language (and yes, ET, I know you're talking about me when you do!), they've also adapted pretty thoroughly to American life. All I know is, I'm happy they're in the US. (Of course, I'm happy to have my Vietnamese-Vietnamese friends studying there, too)
The traffic here in Saigon/Ho Chi Minh City (use whichever you refer but everyone here has caled it Saigon,so I'm going with that) is about 8,000,000 times heavier, or so it seems. My tour guide, Trung, has been very good about guiding me across streets, and I'm cool with it now. But tonight he did something new: he put ME on the motorbike.
Now, admittedly, I wasn't driving, just riding along, but you should know that in the 42 years I've been alive I have never been on a motorcycle (I've decided tonight counts as a motorcycle even though they seem more like scooters on steroids). But I was a good boy and didn't wet my pants and after about 5 minutes I was totally into it. I realize that if you grow up driving in this environment you get used to it and develop that sixth sense that keeps you out of harm's way. I guess it's evolutionary in a sense: if you can't figure it out, you become roadkill, and dead people don't reproduce.
This has been a good trip, I'm glad I took it. I'm staying at the Hotel Caravelle, which has some history to it. My first day here we went on a short walking tour after I landed in the afternoon, then went for coffee and later Vietnamese barbeque. Wednesday we toured some of the city's historical attractions, then went for dinner and later visited a (or really, "the") predominantly-gay coffee house. Today we went down into the Mekong Delta and took a tour on the river, stopping off at a couple islands and hanging with some farmers and fishermen. On the drive back to Saigon we stopped for lunch at a restaurant where the manager was a very cute, gay friend of Trung's, so I got to chat with him for a bit. Tonight, of course, was the aforementioned motorbike time, including dinner, a drive around the city, and then coffee at a very fun place. Friday I'm headed for some tunnels.
I'm having a hard time imagining my Vietnamese-American friends at home in this city. I just feel like, even though there's a lot going on here, they'd be bored. Of course, that's after they've spent years in the US, so even though they still follow some customs from this culture, and also continue to speak to each other in this very cool language (and yes, ET, I know you're talking about me when you do!), they've also adapted pretty thoroughly to American life. All I know is, I'm happy they're in the US. (Of course, I'm happy to have my Vietnamese-Vietnamese friends studying there, too)
Labels: Travel
