The motorbike phenomenon

We checked into a hotel last night, Yellow House Hotel, in an area called Pham Ngu Lao that the Lonely Planet described as 'like Bangkok's Khao San Road in miniature'. Don't know if anyone's ever been and I'm not by any means knocking the infamous Khao San Road, it's just not somewhere we would choose to stay, preferring somewhere a little quieter. We awoke at 3am to a rowdy rendition of Oasis' 'Don't Look Back in Anger' from a nearby bar. A fairly cheerless place anyway, we got up early this morning and headed out to look for somewhere else. We happened upon a bustling market selling all sorts of vegetables, fruit, meat and fish, which was a pleasant surprise. We are now in a different hotel, not too far away from the other one, but far enough.

One thing that we have noticed that is mildly irritating here, that started to happen in Nha Trang, is that when we are sat in a café, numerous vendors come in to try to sell their wares, whether you are eating or not. We hate completely ignoring people, at the end of the day they're trying to make a living so we just smile, say 'no thank you' and look away.

An observation we have made during our various bus journeys throughout Vietnam is the variety of things people carry on their motorbikes. Obviously, there are people. The maximum seems to be 4, the norm being 2 or 3. Quite often this will be the family transport so it's not unusual to see a baby of perhaps 8 months old, sandwiched between its parents. You see people carrying their shopping, not just food shopping either, one man (the passenger) had a 32 inch television set on his knee (no box), another had an air conditioning unit and another man had a bathroom sink between his knees. The ones with gas canisters strapped to the back are mildly concerning especially when you factor in the driver who is smoking. Enormous panes of glass sit upright between driver and passenger and numerous ceramic vases tied precariously together all seem to reach their destination in one piece. Then there's the livestock (and dead-stock). We've seen chickens and pigs being transported in a reasonable way I guess, in small baskets attached to the back. The dead chickens are just dangling from the handlebars, having been tied up by the feet. Dead pigs are flopped on their backs and tied around the middle to the bikes. A little disturbing were the live goats; 3 goats with all four legs splayed and piled on top of each other tied to the back of the bike. It gives another meaning to the term 'meals on wheels.'