Hanoi and I have issues. Like most people or places I have issues with, I’m willing to go a second round in the fight just to see if we can’t warm up. Ya know, cuddle a bit. Maybe you’ll give me inside spoon Hanoi, and even though I don’t like your face, maybe I’m feeling lonely and we come to some sense of common need … some thread in the giant tapestry of this region I so ardently adore. Maybe we find a bar where we can split a beer and laugh, even if we both realize in the moment that this is our last moment, and I might never return.

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The traffic here is maybe the only redeeming part of this concrete sprawl. The traffic in all of Vietnam is legendary. There are no traffic lights, and it never stops. It’s like an animal, comprised of bikes and buses, shuffling old ladies and beat up cars, that worms down the streets as a writhing unit. If you need to cross a street, you have to walk out into this insanity at a steady pace and the traffic moves around you. If you stop suddenly or speed up, you could potentially get clipped. So, the trick is steady pace. People cart everything you could ever imagine on bikes here. Sheets of glass held on top of their heads. Toddlers clutching live roosters. Televisions perched precariously on handlebars and blocks of ice, dripping and towering off the backseats. Today, our driver told us he’d once seen a cow strapped to the back of a motor scooter. Naturally, we acted like asshole Americans.

“No way. You are making that up.”

He then shut our stupid mouths.

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These are called Shoulder Poles or Carrying Poles. I like to call them Pineapple Crossbows.
These are called Shoulder Poles or Carrying Poles. I like to call them Pineapple Crossbows.

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