On the road
on Charley and Jane in Vietnam (Vietnam), 02/Nov/2009 08:34, 34 days ago
We've moved to District 1! It's great and I'll tell you all about it in another post, but it commits me to a gruelling 1.5 hour each way bus trip to work each day. And boy do I mean gruelling (though I suppose to a Londoner its an average commute). I certain enjoy the action outside the bus and - let's face it– 'xe buyt' has to be one of the safest vehicles to be on.I cannot easily describe how busy the roads are, how calamitous every manouvre appears. In Vietnam, two 'lanes' of traffic will have four 'lanes' in it with an additional 'lane' on each side coming from the opposite directions. One of my favourites junctions is called 'Fiveways'– where, yup, that's right five main arterials routes converge. No roundabout. You just pick your exit, and somehow get there. The funny thing is, most of the time it works. Logically, there should be an almighty pile up – in the United Kingdom there WOULD be. Here, the principle of 'fluid dynamics' seems to be in operation. And why not if it can be used to predict weather patterns or model behaviour of nebulae in Interstellar space? Or maybe its the 'chaos theory' that's working here? Someone needs to do an academic study...But it's the particular that stays in the mind. Imagine a narrow street, hundreds of cycles, motor-bikes, occasional cars and lorries. Then you notice a pillion passenger on one of the motor-bikes is carrying a 8 ft high sheet of plate glass. Its a disaster movie waiting to be filmed! Hollywood execs would kill for the pitch! Unbelievable. I mean, even I find it unbelievable!