For those of you from Vancouver, picture the start of the Sun Run...all 50, 000 people. Now put them all on motorbikes, add in a dozen bicycles, a couple of rickshaws, some psycho pedestrians and some cars (that have the right of way) and that describes the streets of HCM. Transports lay on the horn as they speed through intersections to let you know they're not going to stop. And the craziest thing happens when you want to turn left across traffic...You actually don't wait for a clearing (as you'd be there all night) so you just drive into the oncoming traffic and somehow you stop and go and weave your way through. I generally just close my eyes. Good thing I'm not driving! I was going to try and videotape this but I'm afraid I might show up on some reality show for filming my last moments on earth!
Vanessa, Rob's girlfriend, has been touring me around and I think the first time we were downtown, I thought I was going to snap her in half...(I'm at least twice her weight, and I'm no where near 200...) The good news is that as of December, they now require everyone to wear a helmet so there's been a drop in the usual average of 30 fatalities per day...
The funniest thing is watching what is actually on the bikes...I've only seen up to four people but I hear you can get up to six...(can you imagine JP, Ang, Eddie and Anna driving through downtown London on a moped?) Also saw some guys carrying two eight foot trees...It's not unusual to see TVs and computers on the back of a bike. And to top it all off, I watched a blind man cross a busy street. He just waved his cane in the air and people all went around him...Amazing to watch!
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