The traffic continues to terrify the living daylights out of us, but we just have to be bold and step out right into it. It more or less never stops and everything flies in from all directions and heads off in every direction. If you look at the middle of this photo, you can see 2 motos cutting directly through the traffic. Whereas in Phnom Penh, everything happened slowly... here its at the speed of light.
To get a real feel, here's a video I took while standing at a local crossroads - note that its a bit deceptive as there appears to be no traffic at the beginning - this is a fluke I swear!!!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vwc47yzkWMI
And while we're on the subject of traffic, Charlie reminded me of a couple of additional rules that apply to all SE Asia countries:
1. Anyone can drive on the pavement whenever they wish (don't be afraid, the pedestrians will leap out of your way).
2. Pavements are to be used for anything other than walking on. How about setting up a tent or a market. Don't worry, the pedestrians will be quite happy to walk in the middle of the adjacent road.
Vietnam really is very cheap. We get 32,000 Vietnamese Dong to the GBP. Charlie's just bought 2 x designer titanium framed glasses from an optician (including a free eye test) and the whole deal came to 1,500,000 Dong = GBP48. Unbelievable indeed.
The suits we're buying at the tailor are priced in US Dollars but we chose luxury English and Italian designer cloth (imported). Each comes to USD98 = GBP49 and that includes the tailoring and fitting. I'm having a linen jacket as well and that's only GBP20 all in!
So we're quite happy and just chilling. If you check out the photos on Flickr, you'll see out tailors and also some great kids we met on one of our walks. This city comes to life if you smile and joke with the locals!
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment