Beep, beep

---

After China we went to Vietnam and started by spending a week in Hanoi, its capital.

If you were a fan of the road runner cartoons you will enjoy Hanoi. Remember when the road runner kept coming up behind wily coyote and going "beep beep". In Hanoi be prepared to be wily coyote while the road runner will be played by thousands of moped riders.

This is because there are tens of thousands of mopeds in Hanoi while a lot of the streets are extremely narrow, especially in the old town. As the pavements are also used to park the mopeds you will inevitably find yourself walking on the street many times. As the mopeds come up behind, or toward you, they will beep at you which means get out of the way.

However, the main fun comes when you have to cross a road as there are very few pedestrian crossings. Given that there is a constant flow of traffic, getting from one side of the road requires good reactions and nerves of steel. The accepted technique is as follows.

Step unto road from pavement. Do not wait for a gap in traffic as there will be none. You will be the gap. Start walking slowly into the traffic. Note slowly as this is very important. Start moving forward and under no circumstances stop or move backward. You are relying on the motorists to see you and to take evading action. If you do something unexpected like stop you may confuse them. Keep moving until you get to the other side. Simple. Now go to a bar and get a stiff drink.

I got used to this but Linda could not bury the instinct to stop on the spot when seeing a solid wall of mopeds bearing down on her. Eventually she just held my arm and followed me while trying not to look at the oncoming traffic.

One rush hour evening we wanted to cross to the lake which meant crossing one of the widest roads in downtown Hanoi. As we neared the pavement a couple of motorcycle taxi men asked if we wanted to hire them. We said no and proceeded to cross the road using the method outlined above. As we reached the other side we heard clapping and looked across to see it was the taxi men. The were clapping us. We had moved through the traffic like seasoned locals.

After our experiences of traffic in Hanoi I will never complain at the length it takes pedestrian lights to change in Dublin. I will just tell myself that it could be a lot worse.

---