Check her out. Ain't she sweet? That's my new bad ass ride. Okay, I know what you're thinking and yes, she is a bicycle.One of my favorite things about living in Hanoi has always been riding around on a motorbike. However, in Japan I started to ride everywhere on a bicycle and really enjoyed it. Since Huyen has a motorbike I thought that the sensible thing to do was to get a bicycle and to share her motorbike.
Now a few people might be saying, "Ben, didn't you say that you think the most dangerous form of transportation in Hanoi was a bicycle?" Well, yes, I did say that countless times last year. However, after riding around for a couple of weeks I'm going to retract that statement. The fact is that all forms of transportation in Hanoi are dangerous. The one safer thing about a bicycle is that I'm now much taller than motorbikes. I can see over the traffic and people can see me. Now the problem with the bicycle is that it is silent. Most people in Vietnam drive with their ears and not with their eyes. In fact, many people don't have side view mirrors so they only know that someone is approaching when the person behind them honks. I've been doing A LOT of bell ringing with my bike. Oh, yeah, one other disadvantage: I've been sweating a lot on the bicycle...and it is winter now.
8 comments:
Like the helmet!
one good thing: a bike's horn is not as loud as a scooter's
The helmet is the greatest comedy prop every. Whenever a Vietnamese person sees me wearing it they literally start to giggle. Someone said to me the other day, "Foreigners all wear helmets. Why?"
They want to keep their brains intact :)
Ben, ALWAYS LISTEN TO YOUR MAMA ESPECIALLY ON THIS ONE!LH in KY
Thanks LH, wise as usual. Be well and keep giving sound advice!
Ben, many houses in Hanoi aren't large. So is mine, it's just 4 meters x 5 meters, the big table is in the middle of the room, we can't put the side view mirrors on, they're burden to us. And we can't put them on and off so many times everyday. So we decided to use our ears instead of them. By the way, depending on them so much might be more dangerous I think, hehe
Isn't that a woman's bike??? Or just a Toyota?
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