In Ho Chi Minh City for one night on way to Da Nang. Drove in from Cat Thien. Took about four hours, last two were in what I would have to describe as the most horrendous traffic I've ever experienced: Bumper-to-bumper in a sea of motorbikes. That was just getting to the city limits! In HCMC traffic is a steady stream the moves largely on its own with out the benefit of traffic signals in most intersections. Turning left requires a certain amount of steely determination. For all that, though, accidents seem rare.
I'm learning that Vietnam moves by motorbike. Sure, there are many lorries and large transports, including the occasional Freightliner 18-wheeler, but much travels on the back, front ad sides of motorbikes. Sometimes the driver is barely visible. Other times I marvel at the size of the lad. One went by this evening piled high with cases of beer. Maggie wondered how the springs could handle the weight. Most of the bikes are two-wheelers but there are plenty of three-wheel combinations. In Vung Tau we saw a three-wheeler loaded with construction workers pulling a cement mixer followed by another with more workers and tools.
From the looks of HCMC, Communism is more idea than practice. I see the symbols and iconography--portraits of Ho Chi Min, the hammer and sickle and posters celebrating the victory of workers and peasants--but they seemto be a mere backdrop to a go-go capitalism that rivals Hong Kong under the British. Everywhere I look in HCMC I see enterprise and plenty of decadence. Seems like the south only surrendered its political identity in 1975, not its entrepreneurial spirit.
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