The motor scooters of Saigon continued to irritate and
fascinate me; the sheer numbers of them and who and what they carried. Whole families would be on the same bike, the
children often without helmets (not law for under 7s?), beautifully dressed
young ladies with impossible high heels and most of the drivers wearing the
quite sinister smog masks - ironic really when so many of them seem happy to
sit at the side of the road to eat their meals.
We had a competition in the bus to see who could spot the most outrageous thing being carried – there were plenty to choose from; crates piled high, ladders, 5m guttering (horizontal), balloons, feather dusters, dogs (both in and out of cages). One of the best which unfortunately I didn’t see was a chap carrying blocks of ice, 3 on the back and 1 between his legs – Ian said they were melting quickly so we wondered just how much would be left when he reached his destination.
Here are a few I did manage to snap through the window of the moving bus:
And my favourite but you need to look closely see the duck and a chicken
As is often the case when we go away, there are major
roadworks right outside our hotel, so you have a very narrow alleyway to walk
down (of course that doesn’t stop the motor scooters). However unlike the UK, there is nothing
stopping you going onto the building site, indeed it is encouraged – we wanted
to get to some shops opposite and asked the quickest way, which was straight across including jumping across a couple of deep gulleys - elf & safety UK would have a fit.
A lot of the labouring is done by females, both in the countryside and on the city construction sites - something I think my sister-in-law Jan and friend Sue will appreciate.
