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

 
Accidents Will Happen, or
Up Close and Personal with the Vietnamese Medical System

PART 1: Always Go With Your First Instinct


Now that I've put sufficient distance between me and the Terrifying Traffic Accident at Christmastime, I have recovered my sense of humor about it and am ready to fill you all in on the details.

So here's how the whole episode played out. I had been invited to a Christmas party, given by several Vietnamese teachers at my university for all the foreign students taking Vietnamese classes. It was to be held at a Thai restaurant up in the Binh Thanh district, an area I had not visited before. Because I am an idiot and a glutton for punishment, I decided to walk there. It didn't seem like it would be that difficult to find, though ominously, for those who are up on their Vietnamese history, the restaurant was located on Dien Bien Phu Street.

Now, though I have crossed DBP street many times in other districts without major incident, once the street gets to Binh Thanh district it becomes more of a superhighway by Vietnamese road standards. It was wide enough for 8 lanes of cars and two median strips for pedestrians to rest up and regain their courage for the next step. In Saigon, Land of Motorbikes, this means that there were effectively 30 lanes of traffic to cross with two sanity-restoring breaks. Naturally, there were no easy places to cross, and I was on the wrong side of the street.

It was at this point that I made my most critical and painful error. This street looked really threatening, and it was getting dark. I should really just hire a motorbike driver to take me the rest of the way, I thought. Then I wouldn't have to cross this awful deathtrap. But I was early (family failing), and had a half hour to kill (ok, poor choice of words) so I decided to walk it. I mean, by then I had gotten pretty damn good at crossing the street without incident. So I set out across the street at a moment I judged to be the safest, motorbikes whizzing past me as usual.

Let me just say at this point that I was actually crossing in a crosswalk. It wasn't at a corner, but it was a place specifically designated for pedestrians. Of course, that doesn't mean it was much less dangerous than any other part of the street, but at least I can honestly feel I was not at fault.

So anyway, I was thisclose to reaching the first median strip, when a driver who was clearly not following the unwritten laws of Vietnamese traffic speedily careened around a motorcycle who had slowed for me and slammed right into my, ahem, left hindquarter, flipping me rather precipitously onto the median. This driver, whose actual name is a series of unpronounceable one-syllable words, will henceforth be known as The Armwrecker.

Tune in tomorrow for Part 2: What Vietnamese Drivers Really Keep in That Compartment Under the Motorbike Seat.


© 2003 Katy Warren
posted by Katy at 1:40 AM