El Matador

Crossing a street in Saigon is like a dance with death. Not a dance with a malicious and angry death, but more accurately a capricious and mischievous death. Or death's cousins, Dismemberment and Pain. And lest you think I exaggerate, I have video evidence. It is far too large of a file to share from this tenuous Wifi, but the evidence exists nonetheless. So you have to believe me. So there. Nyner-nyner.

If you do not choose to believe me about the difficulty of crossing a road, regardless of why one chooses to cross, look to the moldering piles of bones on the corners of busy Saigon intersections. These are the bones of foreigners who, too timid to dance with death, died of old age while waiting on the illusion of a break in the constant stream of scooters, buses and taxis, with an occasional car or truck thrown in the mix. Let me tell you, friends and neighbors, that break never comes. So it's into a dance with death's little imps, the scooters of Saigon, or it's a slow, wasting death on the corner. I choose to dance!!

The first step is the hardest. One steps off of the curb into the flowing current of scooters. Miracle of miracles, Deus Ex Machina!, the current parts. One must walk slowly and methodically, giving the current a moment to adjust to your presence. Take five more steps, then STOP! as a larger wave parts to pass around you. It is only the blur of scooters, not individual machines. Can you see individual drops of water in the current of a mighty river? No, Grasshopper, you cannot. Ones eyes must always face the current. Never look away! (Oh, and watch out for the steel delivery tri-scooters. They have 5 meter long angle iron and tube stock and other deadly things lashed to them like insane knights on little tiny motorized steeds)

By this time, either one has been claimed by death (end of the dance!), or the center of the road had been achieved. Now, with courage, face the opposing current and step, do not plunge, into the flood. It is truly an act of faith.

Of course, one could cheat. One could cringe behind a tiny old Vietnamese woman as she claims all of the glory in dancing with death, slinking along in her shadow, using her as a shield to fool the devil, but I wouldn't have any definitive knowledge of that sort of thing.