A word or two on traffic.

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Sitting in the passenger seat of a cab where there should be a steering wheel. Heading off from the airport on the wrong side of the road, fingers biting into the plastic dashboard as people on bikes and in small metal boxes on wheels approach perilously close to the windscreen through which my ‘MadMax’ eyeballs gaze. Travelling in convoy at speeds of up to 65km (but seeming like 95km) we finally arrive at our destination.

Three days later I was sitting in the same cab seat with a new appreciation of the beauty of traffic flow in Chengdu.

The chaos isn’t chaos.

Traffic moves, and no one gets hurt. Horns blast as polite reminders rather than road rage.

Most travellers have their neutral faces on, no sign of stress or temper, and like water spiraling down a funnel, 5 lines of traffic become one – a noisy close-contact dance that is a thing of beauty. Everyone so alert.

Arlene and I walked across a busy road today (trucks, buses, bikes, metal boxes on wheels) and we agreed that we could probably close our eyes and get to the other side without any danger of being hit. It would be noisy though.

Ken

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