Wrong Turn: Vietnam

The beauty of traffic.

The improvised art of Hanoian road safety is a sight to behold. In old town, the air is thick with a soundscape of revved mopeds and precautionary honks.

The hustle and bustle of the old quarter is, by some margin, bustlier than even the most bustliest hustles and hustly bustles I’ve known. Each of its 36 streets is a multisensory hullabaloo of neon signs, ignored stoplights and stewing soups.

Considering the hustle that degree of bustle inevitably brings, Hanoi isn't anywhere near as hassley as hustly bustles can be. Deep down in the valley of uncanny knockoffs, the locals flagging down custom are as easy-going as hawkers come. 

Here, a roadside view is the best seat in the house. Tourists can take a seat, negotiate with a bowl of noodles and watch the traffic churn by. 

The traffic of Hanoi is not your average career-considering Monday-morning congestion. Every street is a rush of motorized particles, accelerating and nearly-colliding, diffusing into a space as, or just before, it becomes available. The streets are lively right up to the point of deadly.

A Vietnamese honk is not reserved for near-emergencies - or maybe those near-emergencies just crop up every few metres - but as a declaration of any one of a dozen chancey manoeuvres. Less ‘Watch out, something fucked up is about to happen’. More ‘Watch this, something fucked up is about to happen.’ These easyriders are so at one with averting pile-ups, the roads feels less dangerous than they should. 

As all the blocks are chocka with slurping people-watchers, the drain is the only available lane free for pedestrians. A human is just another unit of traffic and not afforded any more space, care, or worth than any other vehicle. 

After a night or two all warning fades from the tooting. Along with any healthy fear of over-intimate mudguards. If I get ploughed over and over and over on my return, you'll know why.

The official account, at least. No doubt, as I vaycay, those hell-bent on my ruination grow in both strength and number. Don’t buy the official autopsy. Real homies exhume*.

Even at a zebra crossing you have about as much chance as a zebra crossing. Maybe less. A blind trot into oncoming mopeds is pretty much the safest path forward. The old town jaywalker must stake a body part to show they are serious - or simply enjoy what the block they’re on has to offer.

The death-defying nonchalance of the average commuter shows: there are less fucks given in Vietnam. They defy more deaths on the way to work than most Westerners do in a lifetime. The country has roughly 10X more road deaths, and roughly 10X less fuck given, than the UK (per capita).

It is not uncommon seeing a few generations of a family slaloming through the streets on a single scooter. I saw a missile-shaped propane tank riding pillion on a villager’s motorbike. Another rider racing down the highway with a drag chute of cartoon-faced helium balloons. Both ready for their respective lift offs. 

Say what you like about communist regimes - see where that gets you - but there’s none of that darned red tape and blasted health-and-safety hoop-jumping, we’re stuck with over here.

Take Vietnam’s sleeper buses, where stacks of bunkbedded travellers are rocked off to sleep by their driver’s erratic lane changes. In the likely event of an emergency, the overnight buses double as mobile morgues. Wake up, dead, in Vietnam. 

Realistically, giving a fuck about safety is a privilege of the people and countries who can afford it. If there’s a dystopian dodgem track between your toddler and school, what choice do you have?

* I really must get some merch going. Any interest in “Real homies exhume” tea coseys?

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