motorbike madness

A flowing river of urban life. How else can this phenomena be summarized?

With the millions (yes, millions) of zipping scooters moving lawlessly throughout the alleys, sidewalks, streets, rond-points and intersections of Saigon there is an incredible ease and nonchalance that is felt. Everything just seems to flow as an uninterrupted buzzing stream. It's all about maintaining this current and its continuity.  Anything that joins in or breaks away without interrupting progress is welcome. Conversely, an awkward movement, or clumsy manoeuvre by anyone will disrupt and create waves of resistance. The former and latter are quite rare, and made me feel quite self-conscious about my rusty motorbike skills.

What rules? There's no panic on any rider's face as scooters zoom past in the opposite direction (against the flow of traffic). Beautiful girls speeding by gracefully with Ayrton Senna driving skills, a family of four embraced on a new Honda, a newborn infant ensconced between her young mother and proud father, a deliveryman carrying a mountain of product delicately balanced and pressed against his back. All of this multiplied by thousand's as a huge black Mercedes 4x4 muscles in and imposes the law of the jungle. Why aren't there visibly more accidents or cries of frustration? Everything seems to just click and fall into place tranquilly somehow. It's truly amazing and the following thought comes to mind: This would never be possible in any western country. The Germans would feel dutifully inclined to stop and remind you the rules while the Italians would be gesticulating to the wind and cussing every second.

However, things are not entirely rosy. There are an alarming number of accidents per day. If we're to believe the numbers that I received from an acquaintance in Saigon (while sipping a sweet Vietnamese coffee one fine morning), it would be about 14,000 deaths per year for the entire population of Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon)- population 10 million. I was also told that there were about 6 million scooters registered in HCMC. This is all to be verified....

Yet, thankful, there are helmet laws and most adults seem to comply. However, no manufacture has started to make protective headgear for infants. Also, the quality and effectiveness of the helmets leave something to be desired since most of them can be purchased for less than $10 dollars. It's like wearing a padded plastic cereal bowl with a strap.