Loco

It’s that time again! It’s time to be transported 1000s of miles to the heat, the bustle and the ‘motorised beasts of burden’ of Vietnam. This is the last leg of Lara and Tom’s South-East Asian stint, as they have recently set sail on a container ship to the United States of America.

Vietnam. I lie on my bed in the sweltering Saigon heat, a rusty old three-bladed fan slowly revolving above me. My mind conjures up images from the film Francis Ford Coppola’s and others like it, movies with which I’ve grown up, shaping my visions of this enticing land… My visions are disturbed by a strange buzzing noise. As I awake from my reverie it grows louder and louder, as though thousands of bees are heading back to their nest, somewhere under my bed.

Drawing back the curtains I’m brought rudely back into the present, looking out onto a typical street scene in downtown Ho Chi Minh City (formerly Saigon). The source of the noise is not apian but human – I gaze down upon a street full of motorbikes and mopeds, moving in a constant stream, tearing up the street like a conquering army, sweeping all before them. Honking Hondas, yapping Yamahas, screeching Suzukis, even moaning old Russian Minsks. It’s like a kind of oriental Quadrophenia.
Here in Vietnam the two wheeler is king.

Their size suits the Vietnamese – we’ve seen whole families crammed onto one bike – two adults and two kids – another, a little Honda, carried no less than five grinning teenagers. Motorbikes also function as a kind of motorised beast of burden, deployed to cart the family’s food home or carry around the tools of their trade. These doughty little vehicles seem to be capable of withstanding a sizable load – a very sizable one: pots; produce, even pigs, all trussed up in wicker baskets and heading for market.

It doesn’t matter how big you are, or how many bags you are carrying. They made easy work of my 6 foot frame, 50 pound backpack and numerous other accouterments, squeezing us all on board and zipping along the Saigon streets like a ballerina on speed.

As we tore up between the serried ranks of riders, I dug into the drivers shoulder blades and thanked the gods that helmet-wearing has recently been made a legal requirement.
But pity the poor pedestrian. For here in Ho’Ville the sheer volume of traffic makes crossing the road a risky business.

You hover nervously on the pavement, eyes squinting in the bright sunlight, trying to perceive a slight gap which might allow you to squeak across. When one appears you’re in there, dashing into the road, pausing midway to finding another gap in the other direction, praying that some evil knievel doesn’t ram into your large Western behind.

Once again, our Western frailties are exposed. We look clumsy and awkward, like babies groping for their parents. By contrast, the locals don’t find these bipedal menaces a problem; indeed they seem nonplussed at it all, casually sauntering across busy streets. A Ho‘Viller slowly strolls into the maelstrom, with barely a glance at the hordes of horsepower heading rapidly their way, and wanders out, without a scratch, at the other side.

This seems to be a blueprint for survival in Vietnam. We therefore adopt it as we board a bus heading north, pushing deeper into this this manic nation. South East Asia, as we somewhat lazily refer to it, has long been a favourite holiday destination for Western tourists.
So much so that, contrary to our experiences in China, Japan and Russia, the region has, at times, almost felt like a home-from-home, such are both the numbers of Westerners we have come across and the facilities the tourism-savvy locals have put on for their visitors.
From the dirt roads of Laos to the temples of Cambodia, from the streets of Saigon to the jungles of Thailand it is not unusual to meet a fellow Western tourist, be it backpacker or package holiday.

They travel a well-trodden path or, increasingly fly in a crowded sky, on new budget airlines (unaware of the connection between their plane flight and the damage increasingly wreaked by climate change on the places they visit).

Short on time and long on regrets, we join the herd whizzing between the main sights (albeit sticking to surface transport). Many become seduced by the places they visit and linger just a little longer, shortening their stay at their next destination, perhaps canceling it altogether.

Some, a few, don’t seem to leave at all.

We’ve come across them, Retired from the West, attached to the East. Way back, in the 70’s or 80’s they visited these places as tourists, two weeks out of Europe for a holiday in the sun. They returned home but the places they visited stuck to them like the resin of a Jackfruit.

Their lives lacking something in the West, they returned once again, to the beaches, the temples, the people, for another heady rush of the scent of the East, and became hooked. Days turned into weeks, weeks turned into months and before they knew it they were applying for temporary residence here, renting an apartment, meeting or even marrying a local, starting up a small business. I’ve lost count of the number of guesthouses here, or tour operators owned by a German, a Frenchman or some other European.

Some of these people really go to seed in the tropical heat, driven half-mad in the by the extreme change in their surroundings, sometimes overindulging in cheap beer, cheap drugs or cheap love.

Something pops in their head as a result of the alterations to their existence and they remain suspended, neither Western nor Eastern. All have leathery skin, and a long look in their eyes…

Photos:  Lucas Jans,  A. www.viajar24h.com,  Lucas Jans, Thumbnail: Rosino

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