A haphazard chronicle of my inevitable misadventures during a year in Vietnam and points east.

p.s. I'll be pitifully grateful if you send me email during my exile: TravelerKaty@hotmail.com

October 2002 November 2002 December 2002 January 2003 February 2003 March 2003 April 2003 May 2003 June 2003 July 2003 August 2003 September 2003 October 2003 November 2003 February 2006 March 2006 May 2006

 
Happy Thanksgiving everybody!

I spent all day Tuesday with Ninh, Mr. Lanh's very nice wife, going to the Cu Chi tunnels and the Caodai temple, both located some distance from Saigon. From the outset things went slightly wrong -- Mr. Lanh had written down 16B rather than 15B for my address (which, with the insane numbering system they have here, could be blocks away), left a critical 20 minutes late, at what I felt was the crack of dawn, 6:20 a.m.

The Vietnamese, however, are apparently early risers, as the streets were absolutely packed with commuters, parents taking their kids to school (starts at 7 here), and vendors ferrying goods into town via motorbike. I soon learned that although we were essentially headed towards the suburbs, there is no such thing as a "reverse commute" benefit in a country in which the vehicles in the dominant direction disregard the fundamental reasons for the white center line. The reverse commuters were herded way over to the right while the more powerful stream of traffic hogged three-quarters of the road.

I also learned during this drive that I was very wrong to criticize and shield my eyes in fear when driving with my friend Helen all these years, due to her unfortunate penchant for tailgating (no offense, Helen). She's a veritable poster girl for Driver Safety compared to our minivan taxi driver. Part of the problem was actually that his horn didn't work. At least, I assume it was broken -- I can't think of a single other reason why he wouldn't have used it 37 thousand times during the course of the day if it weren't.

Initially, I viewed this broken horn situation as a huge boon to my mental health -- imagine a day without honking! That idea was soon proven naive, at best. Our driver routinely performed dangerous maneuvers; threading between cars, motorbikes and huge trucks, cutting people off, and driving six inches from the vehicle in front of us were but a few. The problem was that because he could not warn anyone of his nefarious intentions with an ear-piercing blast of his horn, he managed to surprise a lot of people. The result was a significant increase in danger for all involved, a rise in my personal blood pressure, and even a net increase in horn usage since nearly all of our driver's potential victims expressed their displeasure in horn.

And I haven't even begun to relate our actual vehicle-related misadventures -- stay tuned for the next episode of Katy's Trip to the Countryside.

© 2002 Katy Warren

posted by Katy at 1:10 AM