Today we visited Halong Bay. It sounds simple but actually that is three hours in a minibus on a crowded road, four hours out on the water in this remarkable natural phenomenen and then three more hours of horn blowing, collision avoiding, people watching and snoozing (holidays can be tiring).
From timber yards with massive tree trunks ready for processing to green paddy fields undergoing processing with scattered conical hatted workers, from family cafes with crouching groups in deep conversation to lone dust masked women at tables selling fuel or water, from the man pushing the harnassed water buffalo to till the field to the roadside children one step away from the speed and dust, it is quite a journey.
Much of it is "highway" but the undulating road surface and the waves of cyclists and scooters belie this description. More like a human highway playing to a background music of horns tooting - ever warning a participant in this crazy race of some further imminent danger and meeting a casual nonchalance in response.
The road is wide enough to permit some passing but not always to accommodate two vehicles and two motorbikes abreast on each side of the highway heading in opposite directions. Much frantic hooting and somehow each time no-one has hit anyone or a scooter ended up in a rice field.
In Britain there would be an incident with rage and quite possibly violence, here it is already forgotten and the next such situation approaching. Necessity breeds tolerance.
As we get nearer Hanoi the paddy fields finally give way to concrete factories with long over-flowing motorbike shelters. The sudden contrast between the sunlit fields and the sterility of the factories and the differing lifestyles and rewards they offer is sharp. They say all human life is a journey.
Keith
Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless device
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