At the University of Missouri, student parking lots are filled with cars. Here, they are filled with motorbikes.
Gail rides motorbikes regularly for trips around town. There are even motorbike taxis, called xe om's (seh om). Gail purchased a helmet for safety when she first came to Hanoi, but it turns out that they are required in Vietnam (unlike in Missouri where people can ride low power scooters and bikes without them.) A student took her on a trip out of town a few weeks ago and Gail came back with a very dirty and grit filled face. The Vietnamese have a solution for that as well: many bike riders, especially women, wear a cloth mask to block the dirt and the sun.
This is the main road in front of the university at rush hour. It's certainly different from rush hour in a city in the US as there are very few cars and most of those are taxis.
One of the challenges of life here is crossing the road. There's a chaotic dance that occurs between pedestrians and the vehicles. If there's a little gap in the traffic, you just take your life in your hands, step out into it. If you can walk beside someone who is closer to the traffic, that is always a good strategy. Then you keep walking forward. The motorbike drivers assume that you will keep walking at the same pace and they adjust to go around you. Sometimes I misjudge, though, and have been yelled at for stepping in front of an oncoming bike when it had no place else to go. You do not, however, step in front of a car or a bus. At least not if you want to survive.
With the wear and tear of this kind of traffic, the Vietnamese have a need for motorbike mechanics as well.
When they get home at the end of the day, they don't leave their precious motorbikes out on the street. Many homes have ramps built into their front steps.
And even without a ramp they manage to take the motorbike into the house for safe keeping.
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