Good Morning Vietnam! (or motorbike mishaps)
by Rob, the owner of only one motorbike, and even that did not go
Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
As soon as we crossed the border we knew Vietnam was different. We went from a life expectancy of 58 to 70+. We went from villages to cities. But the vast majority of the 85,000,000 citizens live rurally and so there was plenty of rice paddy to race through towards the heaving moving mass of humanity called Ho Chi Minh City (or Saigon by anyone not official). With double the population of New Zealand in this one urban metropolis, it hums. Bangkok was big, Phnom Penh never stopped, but this was BangPenh on steroids.
We drove through a good portion of the city in our bus, then it ground to a halt and we noticed our bags being unloaded onto the street, and even though none of the yellow faces on board were making any move to disembark we felt compelled to. In the mad scramble that ensued, we left on board our family-souvenir-from-Asia, a newly purchased carved chess set.
We discovered this about half an hour after the bus had dropped us off as Rach and the older kids were searching out lodgings. So when they returned, having found a guest house, we quickly took our bags to the rooms and I went in search of the bus company office, which amazingly enough was just around the corner from our guest house. Not surprisingly, the address turned out to NOT be a formal office, but I was directed twenty metres down the road to another tour office. Thankfully I found someone there who spoke English, and I explained our predicament, and asked if they could ring the bus company to see if our bag could be located. Yeah, right! I was not at all hopeful. However, forty minutes later, and after no less than six phone calls by the helpful Vietnamese Tour Company Owner to various individuals (the bus company initially said they had ‘lost’ the driver of the bus – how do you do that?!), I was given an address on a piece of paper and told to take a motorbike there and ask for a Ms Ling, who was holding our bag for us. Hardly daring to believe our good fortune, I raced back to the rest of the family to tell them the news.
This was where the real adventure began. Our guest house owner helpfully flagged down a passing motorbike, explained our situation and negotiated a return price for our rescue mission – US$3 for a 15 minute ride. I managed to squeeze into the one-size-fits-all-asian-heads helmet, and got on behind the elderly gentleman driver. Before I knew it we were off. For about ten minutes we snaked and wove our way through peak hour Saigon traffic. Then my driver pulled over and indicated he wanted to see the paper with the address. Scanning the address, then the closest road sign he shook his head. Then he drove on another hundred meters to another motorcycle driver sitting by the side of the road. A conversation in Vietnamese followed with much waving of arms, shaking of heads. Then the driver turned around and said, “This address not here. Much further. Will cost more to go”.
Hmmm, wasn’t this the ploy Lonely Planet talks about being a favoured tactic for ever-entrepreneurial drivers in HoChiMinh? But what are you going to do? This time… nothing.
“OK – let’s just go,” I smiled.
What followed was literally an hour of pure surreal amusement. It soon became clear that my dear driver did not have the faintest idea of where the address was. We stopped to ask directions from at least fifteen different people. No 8 Dong Thai Thien, P11, Q5 was the goal. We pass by Dong Thai Phan, Dong Thai Buen, before he finally drove down Dong Thai Phien. By now I had worked out that the 11 and 5 referred to city sections and blocks. I had also stopped being anxious about being on the back of a motorbike in peak hour traffic and was partly enjoying the ride, although my hands were getting sore from gripping the only handhold behind my seat!! This Dong Thai Phien was in P11, Q16. I also now knew that the reading literacy levels of my driver were limited. He stopped outside number 8, which was a small business with metal gates, heavily locked and closed – it looked like it had been that way for several years. I tried to explain to my driver that the section and block numbers were different, AND that this was Dong Thai Phien…not Dong Thai Thien. He just looked at me, pointed to the closed building and said, “This it!” My hopes of seeing our chess set fizzled away. I patiently tried to explain that this could not be the address.
By now a sizeable crowd had gathered around the two of us – perched on a small Honda motorbike in the middle of the street. No one spoke English, but I managed to get the driver to use his phone to call the tour company that had given me the address originally. He gave me the phone, and amazingly, after being put on hold three times I managed to speak with the lady, who had given me the address, and asked her to confirm the address with the driver. I handed the phone back to him. What was said on that call, I will never know. All I know is that the driver started up his bike again, moved off through the crowd of onlookers and drove back the way we had come for ten minutes or so. He stopped again to ask someone for directions. I was telling myself that I should just get him to return me to the guest house when he drove down another road – I noticed the sign ‘Dong Thai Than, P11, Q5. I started telling the driver “No, this is Thai THAN, not Thai THEIN. Wrong street!” He pointed to #8 – which I then noticed was a bus tour office. THE bus tour office. Thirty seconds later I had our lost bag in my hands. It appears that the address I had been given was wrong after all! We drove back to the guest house in about ten minutes… and I was so relieved at having retrieved the bag without incident (if you discount the three close-calls!) that I gave the driver a healthy tip. How could you blame him if the address was wrong – even IF he had no idea of where he was going!
That was my introduction to motorbikes in Saigon.
Later that evening I would walk to the train station in the dark and discover that when the sun goes down even more bikes come out to play. They don’t care if you are walking on the footpath – they just honk right along. Now I am not talking about the occasional bike zipping past. I mean a solid stream of bike coming hurtling at you, the pedestrian. But I don’t think you quite understand yet. This bike wall is six bikes abreast. Yes, the footpaths are wide, but honestly, they might as well not have any at all!
By the time we got home from this hair-raising adventure I had decided we would not be able to leave the guest house. Ever.
Perhaps I shouldn’t have let the dawning light change my perspective. Then Rach would not have had an up-close-and-personal encounter of her own! She and Jgirl14 had waited two and a half minutes for the road to clear so they could cross (they know it was that long because they were timing the walk for future reference). Finally there were only two bikes coming. The bikes passed and the girls stepped out. Straight into the path of an oncoming motorbike – one coming up the wrong side of the road, and they suspect one of the many, who drive with their heads pointing behind them (curiously, J14 had just been commenting on that variety of driver) – he did not scream until after the impact, which makes them think he anticipated the crash as little as they did. Rach extricated her slightly twisted leg from between the pedals and front fender and the driver disappeared into thin thickly-polluted air. An old man rushed over and put his hand up in front of the surprisingly-stopped and considerable-again traffic. J14 strode and Rach tried to not hobble across the street and a couple of blocks later surveyed the damage – just three red impact marks and bruises colouring nicely. Doesn’t seem right that it can be so sore and have so little to show. Maybe tomorrow….
Good morning Vietnam!
Tags: health, postcard: Vietnam, transport
rayres
wow, what an adventure! rach, bums in a way you won’t have a scar to show for it, then if someone asks you what happened, you can just say ” ‘nam” 🙂 (my brother was hoping for some kind of injury in vietnam just so he could say that)
rob, you win the trumpet for the fabulous use of movie line.
that film left an imprint on my teenage heart.
and HA!
“… ‘nam”
what a great answer!!!
mwah to all the bears X
Love the “‘nam” idea – love it! Glad no-one was left seriously injured AND that you got the bag back!!! You guys pack a lot into a day 🙂