Where Do You Go Now?

Vietnam is like a GNR song on repeat because you can't take two steps without someone asking "Where do you go now? Where do you go now?" or "Motobiiiiike, motobiiiiike." If you are a pedestrian, you are obviously not a local (among other indications).

Walking is nearly impossible because the sidewalks have found themselves more useful as parking lots.





You kind of have to walk in the gutter and hope that the moving motobikes avoid you. If you must cross, you just have to start walking slowly and deliberately into traffic and just watch the parting sea of bikes avoid you.

Here's some traffic in front of the Happy Cock:



Motobikes are extremely fuel-efficient and don't even need to follow traffic rules. Well, neither did the cars, but at least with the motobikes, you don't even really have to stay on the road, sometimes you can take to the sidewalk if things aren't going your way. Pretty much, you can take your motobike anywhere if you blow your horn and/or flash your highbeams to let everyone know where you're at.



Vietnamese wear protective gear such as ninja masks and gloves.
Helmets were a rarity. I did see a spectacular and tragic wreck, though.

Motobikes also save the Vietnamese transportation authority tax dollars because no traffic signals or directions are necessary, as shown in Ha Noi:


This is one of the few traffic lights I witnessed people actually stopping at in Ho Chi Minh City.




Motobikes are not just simply transportation in Vietnam.

They serve as a station wagon for the entire family:







I was part of an extremely slow 4-person ride home from some after-hours bar in Ha Noi (in which 3 out of the 4 passengers were America and thus inevitably larger). You do not corner well with that many people, I'll tell you that much.

The most people I've seen on a bike is five, but unfortunately I could not act quickly enough to get a picture.

Motobikes are useful for home improvement projects:




You can even haul livestock:




Even my American ex-pat friends had motobikes. Paco took me on the back of his motobike for just 6 blocks and it scared the crap out of me. Here's Paco's 2 wheels:


In a desperate search of karaoke (surprise!), Viet took me on his motobike and I told him he was a much better driver than Paco. "Because I'm Vietnamese" he said.


Here's Jason bringing up the rear of his 3-man ride:


Another notable motobike rides that I partook in was when Miss V drove Paco and I, and Paco was flailing his arms and nearly made us crash and I burned the fuck out of my leg on the exhaust and dragged my shoe on the pavement at a roaring 25mph. All I was thinking about was how happy I was that I took out temporary health insurance for that trip.

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