Rules of the Road

Our past couple of weeks have been quiet and per usual here (whatever that now means). We enjoyed seeing Bob Dylan in concert last Sunday (yeah, that actually happened) and have been busy making new friends and remembering new faces. Ginger had an exciting trip to the (one and only recommended) vet who had to remove (another) tooth. However, he threw in a teeth cleaning at the same time since she was going to be under anyway for a bargain $150-for everything. Hopefully she will keep the rest of her teeth from now on…the dog tooth fairy does not have any more money! We also actually took the new camera out for a spin around the city to capture some typical life here before it starts to become “normal” to us. So, instead of droning on about our mundane weeks, I will share a bit more about the country. Enjoy the new pics!

Rules of the Road

Vietnam is one country I would recommend doing some serious soul searching before deciding to get behind of the wheel of a motorized vehicle-or at least spend some quality observation and research on the Vietnamese “rules” of the road (please). Here are some to start:

1. You may stop your vehicle anywhere you wish, whether it be to light another cigarette, partake in the morning comings & goings, look for your destination address or just because. This may be in the middle of traffic, on the corner of a blind turn (non-motorized bicycles may stop here as well), or on the highway.
2. If you don’t agree with the speed the vehicle in front of you is going, feel free to pass them, wherever you are and whatever the consequences may be. (Practice playing chicken in a safer place before practicing here, the Vietnamese truck and bus drivers are very adept at this skill) There are no “non” passing zones, just be careful if there are physical barriers in the median.
3. There are no stop signs, anywhere. So, no worries about getting a ticket for not making a complete stop.
4. Slower vehicles yield (usually). When driving through a 4-way intersection (see rule #3), make sure you are the fastest, then you don’t have to yield.
5. No looking for oncoming traffic necessary when merging into traffic. Just hit the throttle (and the horn at the same time) and be on your way.
6. Traffic lights are only a suggestion. If there is no oncoming traffic within a few feet of your vehicle, feel free to continue through.
7. Turning signals on the vehicle are for decoration only.
8. Getting flashed by one’s brights does not mean you forgot to turn your head lights on. It means “WAKE UP. YOU ARE ABOUT TO DIE!”
9. The only thing you need to pay attention to is what is in the front of your vision. Things to the periphery cannot be bothered with.
10. Don’t worry about the pedestrians, they will move out of your way if need be.
11. When driving down main streets, blare your horn so that vehicles “merging” from side streets will be aware that there is at least one other vehicle on the road to share with.
12. Remember that the police here have a ticket quota too…
13. Bigger trumps smaller. So, although there may be designated “motor bike lanes” if you are bigger than them, you can drive in their lane if you want to (although see #12 if its quota time and carry extra “coffee money”). Likewise, if you wish to bypass some road traffic, take the sidewalk (see #10 in case of pesky pedestrians in the way).
14. The dotted lines all over the road are only a suggestion.
15. If you are a truck driver, your incentive is not to hit any motorbikes. But if you do, better to kill them because then all you have to pay is $500 for funeral fees, however, if they need serious medial attention you are responsible for paying all the hospital fees (which can be very expensive…).
16. Avoid driving if you don’t have to (see all of the above).

Although driving here seems completely insane, they do have a set of “rules” that make no sense to us, but seems to work for them. Strangely they are very predictable in the ridiculousness on the road. Sometimes I feel like I am overreacting to the driving here, but then I read or hear from another Westerner about their road frustrations, and I feel okay again. Every morning, I sit down with a cup of coffee and have my first laugh of the day over a comment on the daily local (expat) google groups page. Here is a comment from earlier this week:

Addressed to: Classy foreign driver in blue BMW

Dear above mentioned person,

Thank you so much for such a wonderful display of selfish driving this morning as you headed toward the Phu My Hung bridge. 
The way you overtook a line of lorries stuck in a traffic jam head on into an oncoming HGV truck was truly remarkable. The way the HGV then decided to panic and swerve into the motorbike lane in which I was traveling, forcing me into loose gravel and stones at 50kph was a much needed test of my riding skills and sphincter muscles. 
Just when I thought it couldn't get any better, you decided that the HGV presented too much of an easy target for you to hit and so you made the brave choice of swerving and aiming at me, forcing me to brake to a complete stand-still.

Thanh Tay Ngu. A wave of apology would have been nice. Instead, you shrugged your shoulders as if you were completely in the right. Of course, I am a lowly motorcycle rider (on a green Vespa but I'm sure you
remember that) and you are a King of the road in a car (a BMW no less) and it was rather presumptuous of me to use a lane for motorcycles. I must accept my responsibility in this matter.

Your humble servant,

Scott

I could not have said it better. (Luckily we have a courteous driver, so I never worry about this). However, you can see why “rules” and “laws” are wonderful things, no matter how much we complain about them…

Here is a short video of us crossing the street! Notice the "cross walk" in the distance. Like most lines on the road, they mean nothing, but every once in a while you can still catch a tourist trying to use them ;)

A Ride through the Foothills

Well…where do I start? It has been so very long since I last updated the blog, I’m not sure what to include. Are you sitting, with a nice beverage in hand-because there may be a novel coming your way! Our shipment from the US finally arrived (only took 3.5 months). They must have put our stuff on the party ship that stopped at every port along the way. But the excitement was short lived because Clayton axed any ideas of unpacking just yet. What was his excuse?? We move again in 4 weeks…but how much more awesome would it be to wake up to freshly brewed coffee in the mornings and drink out of mugs that are larger than the kiddie tea cups that I used to play with when I was 5?! So after rifling through nearly all of the boxes, we finally found the coffee maker and 2 mugs-SO worth the effort! Now I don’t have to re-fill my cup every 2 sips. (And as long as he is at work, he has no idea what else I have unpacked!) He usually only skims my updates, so I think my secret is safe on this blog ;)

I think the biggest excitement of our past couple of weeks was the arrival of our fur child, Ginger. Miss G arrived via United Airlines cargo late Wednesday night with many thanks to the large amount of work from Gramma Julie and Auntie Tina. She flew by herself for the first time-such a big girl now! It was a 2-day trip for her, spending the first night in a pet hotel in San Francisco and the next on the plane. The flight arrived at 10:05 pm Wednesday and UA had informed me that Vietnam had a “late night pick-up”. Dammed if I was going to let them tell me that their customs office was closed after 5pm and she would be “fine” in the warehouse until 9 am the next morning after an 18-hour flight. Don’t think so. So with a bit of friendly persuasion a handful of papers and “coffee money” we miraculously were able to pick her up that evening. I’m pretty sure we were the first to ever do that judging by the non-existent import procedure. No quarantine either, so she is now happily following us around every step we take, scaring the crap out of our Vietnamese maids, and not so much enjoying the heat with her winter coat still in place. But with the amount of hair that is littering the floor right now, I think her shedding instinct has kicked into high gear.

Last weekend we (finally!) went on our first out of town adventure. Invited by some new Danish and German friends, we happily tagged along. The 6 of us took off last Saturday morning for an early flight into Dalat, a city in the mountainous region of central Vietnam. This is where all the “exotic” produce is grown (ie, produce that needs a mild climate) like strawberries, bell peppers, etc. What bliss it was to step off the plane, breathe in fresh air and feel a chill slight enough to think (very fleetingly) about putting on a jacket. We met up with a van, a truck filled with bicycles, and 2 tour guides that took us to our starting point for a 75Km ride to the coast. After interrogating the guides regarding the status of my brakes we were on our way. First was a refreshing 5Km ride uphill, then the remaining 70Km was largely downhill (reason for my faulty brake anxiety) with a few flats and small rises nearing the end. We rode through the mountainous region, then down through small towns and rice fields and dragon fruit farms complete with roaming cattle, water buffalo shuffling through the fields, and cute little piglets waddling across the street and ecstatically rolling through mud. I think they put them there just to make me want to take that ride again! Part way into the morning, we stopped on a small rise and had a few snacks across the street from a group of local farmers who unsurprisingly stared at us like aliens-though I think they were mostly eyeing Jesper who towered over them at 6’4”, making even Clayton look average. I first thought they were staring at all of us until Jesper moved away from the group and I realized that they ALL had their heads turned and necks craned, gaping at every move this foreign invader made. Thanks Jesper, for the mid-morning comic relief!

We finished the ride mid-afternoon and were then dropped off at a resort in Mui Ne, a popular get-away beach town only a few hours away from Ho Chi Minh City. We spent the rest of the afternoon cooling off in the pool and watching the wind & kite surfers on the beach. Mui Ne is famous for its wind sports, which is on our adventure check-list (a steep learning curve and sinus cavity full of salt water ahead, I’m sure). The next day was more of the same sluggishness with a few beach strolls and gawking at “acceptable” European swimwear thrown in for a little beach style entertainment (a men’s speedo-style suit is bad enough, but is an orange and pink plaid pattern REALLY necessary??) We arrived back in HCMC around 10 pm after the usual (so I am told) 4-hour amusement park of a van ride back to town. I felt like I was in a virtual motion ride in Six Flags dodging and weaving through motorbikes, semi’s and trucks on the 2 lane “highway”- or at least what I could see through my hands covered tightly over my eyes. On one of Clayton’s rough draft blog updates that he started about 8-weeks ago (I’m adding it here because it may be the only time it actually makes it way to you) he wrote a little bit about the transportation hierarchy. It goes something like this: semi-truck > bus > smaller truck > van > car > ambulance (seriously) > motorbike > bicycle > guy in horse drawn cart > local pedestrian > foreign pedestrian. Bigger has the right of way (except for the final 2). There’s no place like home, there’s no place like home, there’s no place like I home… I kept saying to myself clicking my heels.

Other than that, our weeks have been filling up slowly. Clayton had a few extra items thrown onto his work plate this past week and I have just started volunteering with some developmentally disabled Viet kiddos at a school for the blind and another early childhood development center. My weeks may start to get even busier with the very real prospect of developing a PT clinic here with an American Chiropractor (the only chiro practice to ever survive in Vietnam). I have all fingers and toes crossed! Other than the presence of Ginger soiling the pants of most Vietnamese we come across, I think our next few weeks will be more of the same awkward assimilation into Vietnam and gearing up for our final move!

Take a look at the new slideshow to see more pics-Click on the actual slideshow to enlarge and view the captions!