Date: April 13, 2006

Place: Cong Hoa Street, Tan Binh District

Mode of Transportation: Yamaha Nouvo

Reason for Driving: Commuting to Work

Sanity Level: Normal to Tense most of the trip

Journal:

Another normal morning in Saigon. Very hot as usual but thank God for air conditioning on my motorbike I decided to get a rush hour perspective of commuting in Ho Chi Minh City. It can be quite dangerous as you will see in the following pictures:

I normally start my morning commute by heading up the canal to Ut Tich Street. I follow along Ut Bich until I hit Cong Hoa Street. From there I turn left and head to the other end of the street, about 5 minutes. The commute is normally high speed during the morning averaging over 40 kmh sometimes.

Notice the intersection. There is a faded crosswalk. You do not see many people crossing this particular street alot. Too dangerous. It has been done!!!

Automobiles must drive in the left lane but sometimes they move into the other lanes including the motorbike lane. If you ever see a traffic jam in HCMC, it is normally do the cars, and motorbikes, driving into the wrong lanes. I got fined 40,000 ($2.70 US) Vietnamese Dong last summer for riding my motorbike in the left lane.

A big danger when riding a motorbike. You have to be very aware of motorbikes cutting you off at any moment. I was not expecting her to cut me off as you can tell in the picture. If I had not slown down, we both would have crashed unto the street. Of course, she would blame me.

Same girl in front of me preparing to cut off some more motorbikes. She is probably going a little over 40 kmh at this time.

She is still there. One thing to take into consideration is that you may get cut off by the same motorbike two to three times during a commute. I have passed several motorbikes that cut me off only to be cut off AGAIN a couple seconds later.

20 kmh. A little slow than normal. 20 kmh is about 12 mph. I normally ride my motorbike between 30-50 kmh.

Another intersection. SaigonTech is just across the street from here. Yeah, I will actually go around these cars. It is normal to be within touching distance of cars while you drive in Saigon.

My destination where I will be safe from the madness of motorbikes in Saigon for at least 3 and 1/2 hours!!!