The ROADS in Vietnam

Allow me to attempt to describe to you the roads that we have been riding along here in Vietnam. I say attempt, as my skill with the pen/keyboard is very limited and I am extremely tired after an 85km ride today. As I sit and write, the traffic continues to whizz by. An endless stream of buses, trucks, cars, scooters, bikes, carts and people on foot. All tooting and jostling for space. I am definately far far from my home where passing 5 cars on my daily drive to work is a busy morning.

Picture this, we are on our bikes one ahead of the other, as close to the side of the road as possible. There is a sea of scooters to our left overtaking us and overtaking each other. Then there are the other bikes that are much slower than us that we have to overtake, plunging us into the path of the scooters. Then there are those pushing carts or on foot that the slow cyclists also have to overtake pushing us further into the centre of the road. Then there is the truck tooting its warning, telling us to move out of the way and generally there is another truck on the other side of the road trying the share the road that is only 1.5 lanes wide at best. If thats not enough there is always a mini van full of passengers trying to pass everyone.

But somehow that all seems to work. That is until the school kids are released from school at 9.30am and about every 300m for a couple of kms, about 200 kids on bicycles, all without helmets and carrying their plastic seats and generally two to a bike, all flock out onto the street. All chatting and not concentrating, they take up most of the road and are the most careless of the lot. That is generally when traffic comes to a standstill, if you are lucky. If not, it all keeps going and for about 500m they have added to the congestion ten fold.

We think we have worked out two rules to follow on the roads.

Rule #1 : Your right foot must always be kerbside. Which has taken quite a bit of getting used to. Often one of us has to yell out 'wrong side of the road' to the other.

Rule #2 : And this is the important one....There are no rules. Traffic lights are often ignored, giving way to oncoming traffic is often ignored, even riding on the right hand side of the road is often ignored (which actually came in handy for us when we took a one way over pass the wrong way). Night lights on bicylces are few. One man actually told Kit off and said the light was too bright in his eyes. Indicators are a novelty. Helmets are only compulsory for the scooter drivers, no need to worry about the baby that is sitting in the drivers lap. However much or however many you can load on to your mode of transport and keep it upright is okay. You only need to headcheck if you can be bothered and side mirrors are positioned for squeezing pimples whilst waiting at the side of the road.

Add to the mix copulating dogs, potholes, giant puddles, people in wheelchairs, food on tarps drying in the sun, rubbish, piles of coconut husks, drivers texting and talking on mobiles, sweethearts stopping on the bridge to look out over the water, chickens, elderly people trying to cross roads, children playing at the side of the road, young kids walking side by side casually chatting, people doing u-turns in cars, on bikes and scooters......the short of it is, it is just absolute madness.....

At the end of the ride you are just as mentally exhausted as you are physically. You can not take your eyes off the road for one second. Believe me, I did and it almost ended in a collision with an oncoming scooter. Not exactly the peaceful Mekong Delta experience I was dreaming of. We are riding along the Mekong but unfortunately it is on a main road between cities. But tomorrow we will veer off the main roads and hopefully we will experience river boats, rice farmers, fisherman and the quiter life of the river.....