Traffic in Ho Chi Min City, 27th April 2008

Just a glimpse of the traffic - how do you like the wiring?

I have not yet written about my short stay in Ho Chi Min City. I was only there overnight but it made a huge impression on me. It is a city like no other that I have visited. Knowing that I would arrive in a state of exhaustion I had arranged to be met at the airport by a driver for the hotel. In retrospect this was probably unnecessary but it was very nice not to have to negotiate with the hordes of determined taxi drivers and touts on first arrival. My drive into the city was comparatively sedate in a modern car with air-conditioning. I watched in awe the sights of HCMC unfold as we got closer to the centre. The first and overwhelming impression is of the traffic.

There are apparently about four million motorbikes in the city. These, combined with bicycles, cyclos (bicycles which have a seat for a passenger or two in the front), cars, trucks and buses, weave through the streets in a bewildering and noisy fashion, often ten or more abreast. The drivers, apparently determined to take the shortest, quickest possible route to their destination, toot frequently on their horns as they go seemingly randomly through intersections, change lanes, (and indeed sides of the road), and commandeer the footpaths. The traffic continuously flows around others and pedestrians in a way that I have never seen before.

The riders (and pedestrians) appear to have an extraordinary ability to anticipate the intentions of those around them. Watching the traffic made me think of flocks of birds that swirl in the sky, moving in semi-unison, but crossing paths without collision. It seems like chaos, and I am sure that at times it is and that accidents do occur, but it has a beautiful order within it. Here in Quy Nhon, as I try to prepare myself to join the fray on my bicycle, I have been contemplating the skills that I lack. I frequently see children, including tiny babies, perched on the front of motorbikes weaving through the traffic. I am sure that these children are developing a heightened sense of spatial awareness and knowledge of trajectories – perhaps I need to borrow a child to be my guide! I do however find it disconcerting to see these children and babies on motorbikes with no protection whatsoever. Helmets have recently been made compulsory and (of a sort) are worn by many of the adults but I have yet to see one on a child.

I suspect that the organic, unstructured nature of the traffic actually works for flow much better than a rigid system would. It has certainly given me a different perspective on the concept of ‘Asian drivers’.

The other aspect of the traffic that impressed me from the beginning is the ingenuity of the Vietnamese people in transporting large objects by bicycle or motorbike. I have seen all sorts of things being carried including; large panes of glass, fridges, a double mattress, a cage full of puppies and another with three full size dogs on the back and one sitting on the tank, piles of LPG gas bottles, huge quantities of plastic bottles, two big pigs in a basket and racks of dried fish with a lit brazier. It seems that there is almost nothing that you can’t transport on a bike!