When you arrive in Vietnam’s capital city you don’t quite know what to expect. Well the title says it all.
I’d read about Hanoi’s love of mopeds and motorbikes on many websites and in our trusty Lonely Planet guidebook but you think, ah how many can there be…well, take a look.
However, this was not the most interesting thing about Hanoi’s moped fetish.
Firstly there’s the number of people they can fit onto a single moped. On our way from the airport at 10pm on a Saturday night we saw several mopeds carrying 3, 4 and even 5 people (2 of which were infants!).
Secondly there was the mobile pyjama parties we witnessed. While stopped at the lights in downtown Hanoi a few hundred mopeds pulled up along side our taxi, as they do, and many of these mopeds were being driven by a teenage girl in pyjamas usually with what seemed to be her best mate or sister or whatever perched on the back also dressed in her pyjamas with designer helmets (Burberry I think).
And as if this wasn’t enough, either one or both of the girls often had their mobile phone to their ear with one hand and either driving with the other hand or else waving the other hand about while talking in an animated fashion as if sitting in her living room having a casual chat.
Unfortunately I didn’t get a photo of the pyjama girls to prove it but maybe they’ll be out again tonight!
I can’t get over how many of them wear those surgical masks to stop the fumes. Do they not think the combination of mopeds x 3.5 million crazy drivers is going to kill them first??
R.
