Saigon Traffic

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November 12 - Saigon / Ho Chi Minh City
What can I say other than I have never seen anything approaching Saigon traffic. The city is scooter heaven, it seems that virtually everyone has one, they are used for everything, also when it comes to driving anything and everything goes. Shortly after arriving at Saigon and finally getting processed by some of the slowest stoic custom officials we arrived at our hotel the Hotel Equatoral; our room is not as High Teck as either that is Kyoto or Hong Kong but more comfortable. Only a couple of days ago Saigon experience a typhoon so needless to say today was hot and sticky, the temperature was 34 C combined with high humidity.

Today we visited a Chinese Temple, the Post Office and the Roman Catholic Cathedral Norte Dame. While this was interesting all of us were focused on traffic that seemed to flow fairly well considering that there were few if any driving regulation that anybody followed. If the traffic was backing up in front of you then take the sidewalk, if it is a one way street and there are hundreds of scooters going that direction and you want to go in the opposite direction, well what the heck do it. The icing-on-the-cake is when you come to a junction with 4 busy streets merging; well the strategy seems to be charge. Whole families of 4 will be on scooter, women tend to wear long gloves and a total face mask plus hat when driving. This is more to avoid a sun tan than for the smog. The average income in Saigon is approximately $700 per year. In Hong Kong you rarely heard a car horn, in Saigon it appears to only second to the break in terms of use. One other observation for both Hong Kong and Saigon is the vast number of electrical wires that are strung through the city. I would never want to have to figure which wire goes to which house. In terms of population the City has about ¼ of Canada’s population.

In the evening we boarded a boat for a cruise and dinner on the Saigon river. The band on the boat was terrific so naturally I had to get up and ask a number of ladies to dance. The meal was excellent.

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Photos

Welcome to Saigon
Our greeters at the airport

Saigon Traffic
The streets are virtually wall-to-wall scooters with some trucks and buses thrown in for good measure.

Chinese Temple
The top of the walls were decorated with everyday carvings.

Chinese Temple
This was the main alter in the temple.

An electrician's nightmare
Just one example of the wiring in Saigon

Saigon Traffic
It was common to see whole families riding together. Last year the Government mandated helmets for motor bikes as you can see the populace hasn't complied yet.

River Cruise
We had two dance exibitions put on for us, plus a magican and if you wanted it a messauge

Interchanges were exicting
This would be the inflow from one direction.