Flee Foul Drop
What's this, what's this? Trouble in paradise? Or at least stormclouds on the horizon - rainy storm clouds! Rain is something that happens to other people (or to me when I'm in Finland)! Rain is definately not something that happens when I am off for a two day trip to Halong Bay... yet such is the forecast and today definately has been drizzly in Hanoi.
Oh well, I'm used to sailing in the rain by now... so off I go tomorrow morning and you shall hear of it when I return.
Yesterday I had a second, glorious day driving around the little roads and through villages in the rice paddy paradise of Ninh Binh area. One of the most enjoyable days on this trip - the scenery is just ooh-aah. I rented a motorbike and drove myself. Fear not, I am an experienced driver having driven a scooter once in Korfu in the summer of 1986. I started my voyage in style by driving the first kilometre along the kerb on the wrong side of the road. As I've written before, driving on the right hand side of the road is more of a general recommendation than a fact of life in these parts. The local custom makes sense, since crossing to the other side of a busy main road just to cross it again a kilometre later to turn left is really not sound strategy. If the aim is to live to a ripe old age that is.
And indeed I felt much safer riding my own motorbike even on the wrong side of the road than on the back of one today zipping through the Hanoi traffic. The helmet was a tad on the large side - would have accommodated both my hands as well as my head - and had no strap, so it would have promptly pivoted off my onion had there been a collision. Collision was avoided though, not so much by the superior skills of my driver, as by his unique method of getting other motorbikes to clear a way for him: loud yodles and cowboy calls! I think his horn may have been out of order, but the end result was surreal and somewhat disconserting anyway. It's somehow hard to maintain faith in the absolute professionality and/or sanity of your driver as he yodles his way through an intersection. At one point he adjusted his side mirror to show me and the monster helmet, rather than the traffic, and seemed endlessly amused and sent up cracling laughter as he pointed to my, admittedly, worry-creased face in the mirror. My face instantly became even more worry-creased, since I truly wanted him to look at the traffic, rather than at the mirror.
So tomorrow I'm off for the high seas again! Yihaa! Yo-de-li-hih-hii!
Oh well, I'm used to sailing in the rain by now... so off I go tomorrow morning and you shall hear of it when I return.
Yesterday I had a second, glorious day driving around the little roads and through villages in the rice paddy paradise of Ninh Binh area. One of the most enjoyable days on this trip - the scenery is just ooh-aah. I rented a motorbike and drove myself. Fear not, I am an experienced driver having driven a scooter once in Korfu in the summer of 1986. I started my voyage in style by driving the first kilometre along the kerb on the wrong side of the road. As I've written before, driving on the right hand side of the road is more of a general recommendation than a fact of life in these parts. The local custom makes sense, since crossing to the other side of a busy main road just to cross it again a kilometre later to turn left is really not sound strategy. If the aim is to live to a ripe old age that is.
And indeed I felt much safer riding my own motorbike even on the wrong side of the road than on the back of one today zipping through the Hanoi traffic. The helmet was a tad on the large side - would have accommodated both my hands as well as my head - and had no strap, so it would have promptly pivoted off my onion had there been a collision. Collision was avoided though, not so much by the superior skills of my driver, as by his unique method of getting other motorbikes to clear a way for him: loud yodles and cowboy calls! I think his horn may have been out of order, but the end result was surreal and somewhat disconserting anyway. It's somehow hard to maintain faith in the absolute professionality and/or sanity of your driver as he yodles his way through an intersection. At one point he adjusted his side mirror to show me and the monster helmet, rather than the traffic, and seemed endlessly amused and sent up cracling laughter as he pointed to my, admittedly, worry-creased face in the mirror. My face instantly became even more worry-creased, since I truly wanted him to look at the traffic, rather than at the mirror.
So tomorrow I'm off for the high seas again! Yihaa! Yo-de-li-hih-hii!
Comments
NIIN.
Koriveneet edellisessä bloggauksessasi ovat kerrassaan hurmaavan näköisiä puhdaslinjaisuudessaan, mutta en kyennyt keksimään muuta funktiota kuin fatalistisen asenteen mennä sinne minne virta vie. Ei ainakaan tartu matalien kohtien vesikasveihin.
Sattuvaa että näin vastikään eräässä täkäläisessä toimistossa korinpunojan tekemän luonnollisen kokoisen moottoripyörän (ihan oikeasti). Ehkäpä niitäkin alkaa tulla siellä vastaan.
Hyviä tuulia!