Driving

We had heard that the driving and traffic in Vietnam is some of the worst in the world. After being in Cambodia we thought, how much worse could it really be? Today we found out. We took a 300 km bus ride from Ha Tien to Can Tho, and it was crazy! It was in a mini bus so, the speeds were really fast. The quantity of motos, bikes, and people on the rode is crazy, and there is no shoulder at all. Really none! So everyone just drives, and doesn't look at all who's coming behind them or beside them. Us being in a van makes us almost the biggest thing on the road with the exception of trucks. So anything that is slower than the van gets past...and it doesn't matter if something is coming the other way. I'm not exaggerating to say that 95% of the trip was either spent on top of the centre line or in the other lane...you drive like this until something bigger than you comes the other way, while honking the entire time you swerve at the very last second into the other lane to avoid behind hit. The motos and bikes better just hope that they're not beside the van when it happens.

I realize it's a hard picture to paint, so here are a couple of videos. We don't have a vid. camera, so these are off the net. The first one is a good example of what we experienced today, but we were in the country and going at least 100km/h, so you'll have to speed it up in your head. The second video is just a good example of how you can do whatever you want here, and it shows the vast number of motos.