Driving Down the Thin Blue Line

For the last three years I’ve been cruising the streets of Saigon on my Honda Future. This is actually my third one. What can I say? I’m brand loyal. Actually, the first one got stolen just before Tet holiday in 2007, the second one was this puke-green colour so I swopped it for a twin of my first one from Mr Hung, the bike dealer/jack of all trades who I rent from.

However, recently the five-oh have been making it harder and harder for me to express my right to drive around licenseless, as rightly they should, as not every Tung, Chim or Hoang can be trusted with a motor humming between their legs. As an article in the Thanh Nien reads, “HCMC police will not tolerate resistance from foreigner drivers found flouting traffic rules without a driver’s license”.

So let me translate that for you: “The HCM fuzz won’t take no more mouth from foreign devils flipping the bird at the (non-existent) laws without at least a 500 thousand Uncle note to oil The Man’s machine. If you do have a license, just nod, smile and continue flouting an’ spouting all you like.” This sucks because in the past I would just get stopped, (usually by mistake as the Whoop Whoop don’t generally speak English so don’t like stopping foreigners) pay a fine or feign total ignorance and go on my merry way. There was no talk of paperwork, documentation, or some such.

Ready to roll with the braai on the back

I’ve been stopped at least three times now. The first time back in 2006, when I jumped a red light, as you do here, I freaked out a bit because Old Bill was all official looking in his beige uniform, aviators, baton in hand and gave me a salute and asked to see my license. I broke out in a bedazzling, machine-gun spray of rapid Afrikaans, something like: “Jisoomekskakjammeroomekkitniebedoelomoordierooiligterynie”, which knocked him over and sweeped his hair back for months to come. Lost in translation, which there was none of, he let me off with only a warning.

The second time the Heat stopped me, I was driving in the car lane, perhaps a tad too fast for a Sunday afternoon down Le Duan Street. They caught me off guard, because I was short on cash for their children’s college funds. They usually want between 100 and 200 thousand Uncles from the Tay Bao Lo (which refers to Western backpackers but used derogatorily for any foreigner, cause we’re all tourists aren’t we?). I only had about 70 thousand, showed him my empty wallet, which The Man’s crony wasn’t very happy about, but he took it any way, gave me a tap with his baton and sent me on my way.

The last time was a two weeks ago on my way home from work and that just set me back 100 thousand. It was weird bargaining with The Law as he’d sneakily written down 200 000 VND on the back of a notepad. I shook my head and gave him 100 thousand, which he quickly palmed.

Now the heavies are getting hardcore. I got an anonymous SMS the other night: “Dear Friend! I want to notice to you about the policy of traffic cop in VN nowadays is very difficult. In this week, 2 motobike of mine had been caught by the traffic cop and they keep those for one month and punished 1.8 million VND, so I send you this message to remind you to take care when you driving because you don’t have VN driver license so you shouldn’t run fast, shouldn’t pass the red light, thank you.” Now, despite the bad grammar and the weird warning that I shouldn’t run too fast, the message is pretty clear:

The boys in blue, or in this country they tend to don beige or fatigue green uniforms, are turning up the heat.

My friends in green, sometimes in beige

They wouldn’t accept my mate Joe’s proffered 200 thousand VND, but wanted 500 large ones instead! How rude! The impounding of bikes sucks. They fine you $100, stick your bike on the back of a truck, and keep it for a month. When you get it back, the exterior looks the same but you can be pretty sure the quality Japanese parts inside have been changed for cheap Chinese ones which will cost another $100 to replace again.

The blue meanies are everywhere. I see them around every corner. Yesterday, they pulled some dudes right out of traffic, not having committed any offence, and pretty violently too. I saw them ripping a woman off her bike in peak hour traffic for no apparent reason. So any of you out there cruising around illegally, “Watch yourself, cause Babylon’s out to getcha!”

Disclaimer: Of course I would never write an article of this magnitude against authority of any kind, so this was obviously a guest opinion post written by my friend Kabbalas*, who lives in District 14 and wishes to remain anonymous, in fear of being deported back to Tajikistan.

*Possibly his real name

April Photoblog

Here's a pic of my neighbours eating outside my house during one of our weekly power-outs. I wonder if HCM City's electricity authorities have been taking tips from Eskom?

PS: This is my 200th blog post so thanks to all of you who have managed to read this far, I couldn't have done it without you!

The long-awaited guest post

Well, where to begin…

I guess an introduction would do, I’m Alan, aka mullet, Henno’s friend. I decided to come and visit him and Christoff at their crib in the Tan Binh District. The past two weeks here in Vietnam have been an adventure unlike any I’ve had before.

The chaos of being on Ho Chi Minh City’s streets in peak traffic or the tranquility of the beaches with it’s palm trees and peanut fishing boats. The peace and luxury of a massage and facial or the thrill and rugged beauty of travelling the countryside on a scooter, seeing parts of the Vietnamese countryside in ways that many westerners will never experience and shooting targets with an AK47 assault rifle or haggling with a shopkeeper in the market over the price of water. Eating amazing meals in a restaurant with 5 star service or chowing down on a durian fruit or a pigeon’s head. The graphic, disturbing and mostly justified hatred of America for the Vietnam War from the local perspective depicted in all of the museums and other war-related tourist attractions or the selfless attitude of locals who would like nothing better than to help a person to get the most from their visit regardless of the reward.

These are but a few of the crazy, amazing, unexpected, annoying, shocking (and many more adjectives that I cant be bothered to mention) experiences that I’ve had in Vietnam.

When I first arrived at the airport to see Henno and Christoff calmly leaning against their scooters anxiously waiting to see my initial reaction, I was completely overwhelmed by the city and all that it had to offer but after a few days, even initially strange things like the upbeat music, drawling bleat or decidedly midi tune of a passing merchant selling some or other product or service became a familiar sound that formed part of the day to day hum of HCMC and just faded into the background.

One of the highlights of the trip would have to be taking a scooter out into the countryside to go and see the Cu Chi tunnels, getting lost on the way there, lost on the way back, getting caught in a tropical thunderstorm and soaked to the bone before being flagged of the road and into a tiny roadside “café” for a Coke and bombarded by questions in both Vietnamese and broken English. Another, playing footie with the Saigon Raiders and kicking some ass before retiring from heat exhaustion and blistered feet.

I won’t even begin to mention embarrassing karaoke jaunts, throwing up after memorable (?!) nights on the town and sampling some of the more exotic fruits and delicacies.

I could hardly begin to summarise everything that I have seen, done and experienced in the two weeks I’ve been here but I can say that it has been an amazing experience and a shitload of fun. It has also been awesome to see two of my good friends and the friends that they have made along the way enjoying life and being so at ease and content.

Thanks burgs for showing me how you roll, It was killer. Enough said.