now that i am officially stranded, i have time to blog.
we flew in to saigon via darwin. sydney to darwin was early morning flight and i arrived to the news i was travelling qantas instead of jetstar. thank you universe. i expected to be similarly blessed on the following flight but was instead greeted with seating buddies who chewed constantly with their mouths open and couldn't speak english. which wouldn't be a problem if jetstar thought to have multi- or bilingual staff on their international flights. but they do not. in all situations it is everyone elses responsiblity to learn english. so flight attendants kept telling my neighbours the same things, in english, at varying volume levels. at times leaning entirely across me.
saigon was overwhelming. or would have been if i hadn't been to south east asia before. never seen so many motorbikes and scooters ever. amazing. the road rules were completely unclear. and they were driving on the other side of the road. mostly. and constantly honking their horns. horns here seem to indicate hello, i am behind you, move over now, watch out and bye. imagine hundreds of two wheel vehicles, a handful of taxis, occassional buses and imagine they all want to get somewhere pretty quickly. like, maybe it's a race. then imagine that traffic lights are actually just decorations that serve no practical purpose.
in saigon for one night, i chose to only cross small streets.
the following day we flew in to hanoi. even as we descended i knew i liked hanoi better. on our way in to town, the taxi driver indicated with sign language that the reason the traffic had slowed as we approached a bridge was that a motorbike and driver had gone over the edge. motorcycles, bicycles, cars all stopped along the bridge so people could get out and have a look.
we continued on our way, cab driver again employing sign language to imply "seriously, what a fucking idiot."
the streets felt just as overwhelming once we got checked in to a hotel and went to explore. every time i crossed a road successfully i would laugh. at one point an elderly woman was escorted across the road by a far more confident crosser of streets than myself, who just stepped in front of cars and held up her hand to STOP. i felt pretty lame as i utlised the opportunity to get across the road.
before leaving australia, i spoke to one of my workmates who is from vietnam. the only advice he had was "once you start crossing the road, just keep going." when i asked if he had anything else, his reply was simply "no. just keep going."
