Hanoi Traffic

Hello to all of you who are reading my first travel blog in three years!!  Some of you know that I am in Vietnam right now - visiting my brother Andrew who lives here. Those of you who didn't..... well, you do now :)

I made this video based on my first impression of Hanoi, Vietnam. 

I arrived in Vietnam about two days ago, and let me tell you, it has been chaotic!!!! I'll get back to that later though. My first stop in Vietnam has been Hanoi, where my brother has been living with a Vietnamese family for the past four months. Hanoi is a very big city, filled with a lot of people. These people always seem to have something to do, and somewhere to be. For me, the vibe of Hanoi seems to be a rush, and very busy. The streets here are almost always crowded with motor bikes. The only time the streets get quiet here, is around five o'clock in the morning! To get a feel for Hanoi, you have to know what the streets look like. Watching the procession, standing on the sidewalk (where motor bikes like to ride as well!), the bikes look like a constant stream of salmon heading up river to spawn; they pour down the road, with lots of cars mixed in to give the current a general direction. There is also the occasional terrifying bus that acts like a grizzly bear, out there to pick off the wayward salmon. 

All of the traffic constantly honks, even when there is no apparent reason, so the city is never quiet. When you need to get across a street in the city, there are no cross walks to guide you - instead, you just look for a small clearing, and out you go! It feels like anyone who crosses the street is going to get hit by a thousand motor bikes, but each time the end seems near, everyone somehow avoids each other. I haven't been brave enough to cross a major street by myself yet (the street in the above video was tiny, AND it was 6am before any traffic was out in force!!), but I know that eventually I will be ready... maybe :)