Hà Nội musings

viei have decided to eschew the linear chronicle of my travels in favor of my usual expansive contextual soliloquys (and this blog is gonna remain a monologue until someone decides to post an engaging comment.) as with the female perspective on sex, it's not about the destination, it's about the journey.

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Mornings in Hà Nội were a gradual circadian arousal to the urban chorus of roadrunner motorbirds chirping "meep meep" as they zipped along and the incessant trilling of construction. the sun rises earlier in the East, i swear. i was unreasonably up at 4 or 5am every day in VN, drowsily conscious of the ombre saturation at the apex of the kelly green curtains.

traffic in VN is dominated by the moped. it is the primary vehicle for the family sedan, jimmyrigged commercial transport, crisscrossing the city weaving with an unwritten ethos of humanism--perhaps its the lack of insurance underwriting that impels everyone to avoid an accident. the right-of-way seems to be determined by who is boldest. as US road rules hold, wherein one drives on the right-hand side of the road, turning left is very much like playing chicken into oncoming traffic. little vehicles, mopeds have to accomodate the larger ones. etiquette is that everyone honks to let others know that they are approaching. road rage (as in exiting your vehicle with psychopathic intent) doesn't seem to exist in VN no matter how crazy the traffic, no matter how many times you get cut off.

i had forgotten how thrilling the density and organized chaos is for a pedestrian. or perhaps i've just gotten older and bây giờ biết sợ learned a healthy dose of self-preservation as i later told our youngest aunty when she recounted my crazy SG xe mấy adventures to Uyên. nowadays, i wouldn't deliberately ride the wrong way with a fierce grin into thick traffic on Hoàng Văn Thủ--the busy artery entering SG--in order to drift to the right side of the street (which is the quickest tactic to get oriented to your desired direction rather than trying to merge into traffic going opposite to the way you want, drift over to the center and pull a U-Turn when there are no medians and therefore you expose both flanks to collision. it's better to see potential danger/opportunities approaching); nor drunkenly scale buildings with exposed live electrical wires anymore. i've mellowed. crossing a busy street, i found myself clinging to my companions as we crossed the street with a feigned nonchalance and a hop & sigh to safety.

after my first taxi ride, i remembered that i should never look forward into traffic to witness all the heart palpitating gasp near-misses, but to detach and look sideways, breathing deeply, beyond the teeming mass of mopeds a breath away, to the cityscape. it was fair to assume we wouldn't crash into a building. Hoàng's video game-derived strategy was to cheer on the taxi driver like a real life version of ViNa Grand Theft Auto "yeah, just hit her. runover the old lady."