In addition to buses, taxis, xe oms (motorcycle taxis), bicycles, or driving your own motorcycle (which will be covered in a future post titled “Almost Dying Every Single Day in Saigon”), there is the option of the cyclo.  If you’ve been to India, it’s the same as the cycle-rickshaw, and it’s a dying breed here in Ho Chi Minh City.  With the popularity of the motorcycle increasing for Saigon residents, the cyclos are becoming more for the tourists than anything.  Many streets now prohibit cyclos, and apparently the government is trying to phase them out altogether. But it’s a cheap, fun ride that should really be experienced…

There is no contest in what I consider to be the greatest accomplishment of my time here in Saigon.  Driving a motorbike, day after day in the traffic here.

I've never seen traffic jams like this

When we arrived here we were totally amazed by the chaos embodied by the traffic.  Motorbikes, cars, and buses swirled around each other and over every part of the city that was remotely level.  To live here is to constant keep your vision moving, looking for the next screaming motorbike, bus or wall of traffic and figuring out if it is going to require swift reactive action on your part.  The flow never stops, so even crossing the street is an exercise in slowly putting one foot in front of the other and trying to make eye contact with whatever insane driver is on a trajectory mostly likely to intersect with your own.  This absolute madness was something we boldly boasted about walking through, but never imagined we would take part in.

We seem to do a good job of challenging ourselves, and as such it wasn’t long before we found ourselves learning how to ride a bike out in the industrial district under the brave guidance of one of our Vietnamese friends.  After that we promptly rented bikes and built up a tolerance for traffic levels.

As much as the traffic here is pure anarchy and lacks compete regard for laws or common sense, there is a sort of system.  A system I think of as blockers and flows.  Flows move in a single direction, along streets, down sidewalks, and are more or less as safe as it gets.  You bounce along through them and try and keep a bubble from the other crazy drivers.  The challenge comes when you need to switch to a flow moving a different direction or when two flows intersect.  At this point its just a big fucked up game of chicken with no right of way between one and a few hundred drivers competing for the same slice of road you need.  This is where the blockers come in.  No matter how many lanes of fast moving traffic there are, there is always someone with less to lose than the rest that inches out.  As they block the oncoming flow everyone else falls into the traffic shadow they create until the balance tips and your flow takes the road. Simple right?

Needless to say no matter what happens to me, for the rest of my life I will never forget the experience of driving in Saigon.  Never has been getting to where you’re going been so insane or exciting.

Crossing the flow