Making Tracks in Hanoi

Making tracks in Hanoi.

It works somehow, just don't ask how, a motorised ballet conducted with gasoline.  Superbly graceful at times with the next fine move missing a neighbouring vehicle by a hair’s breadth.  It can be quite the menagerie, quite literally, as you've sometimes seen all sorts from Polly the parrot to a canine giant positioned effortlessly and so very comfortably on a scooters footwell, or even on the handlebars as it winds its way.  A family of four is not too uncommon to see on just the single scooter.

Sometimes you've glanced in sheer amazement at a tiny scooter toying with the laws of physics, like a two-wheeled version of the childhood game ‘Bucking Bronco.’  There wizzes past another scooter overloaded with cooking oil barrels, enough to fry ten thousand potatoes!  Meticulously bound together with some sort of string and a prayer or two.  The energy and restlessness of this city tells you that this oil is on a crucial mission to get to its culinary destination.  Where could they be heading in such a rush you wonder?

Once or thrice you've noticed, strapped to a slender, underpowered moped, a quantity of toilet roll so staggering high and wide that it ensures the rider will be safer than being in a hot hatchback with state of the art airbags, should reality decide that this precarious load really doesn't comply with the laws of physics you were taught at school.

There are some unwritten rules for this whirling chaos, well, sort of.  As you crossed a busy corner you witnessed a rider approaching their oncoming foe, keenly and sharply assessing their opponent’s intention and degree of confidence.  Too timid in action and their opponent will seize that initiative and edge into that fleetingly vacant space with steadfast surety.  They 'toot' their tinny horns from their trusty mopeds or four-wheeled machines to let the other riders and drivers know they are close, very, very, close.

No-one raised an angered fist, shouted their lungs to bursting point or chased anyone down, against their grand objective of getting from A to B or even Z, to harshly chastise their target as if they had committed a heinous crime, bordering somewhere between treason and murder.  It's live and let live here, they all have somewhere to be that doesn't require making sure you don't get to yours.

They drive to their goals, instinctively intertwining their pathways to work, home or joyrides though Hanoi's web of crisscrossed streets and narrow alleyways.  They will, occasionally, give a fleeting glance up from their mobile phones to briefly acknowledge how close they were to the vehicle that sharply came to an abrupt halt, mere inches in front of them.

You are, however, a braver soul than those in command of these crazy scooters, you’re a pedestrian and are on your own two feet making your way, keeping a steady pace, slowly changing direction with a calm swan-like grace.  Don’t, just don't, make any sharp alterations to your spontaneously planned path to the aromatic cafe enticing your senses over the busy road, just there, in Train Street.  Those in this motorised ballet rely on your steady, unwavering progression, to calculate instinctively somehow how to miss you, so finely, as you make your way yonder.

You've now made it, across the hectic masses of scooters and past those zebra crossings, those mere decorations from a great city planners bygone dream.  Your simple evening stroll from your boutique old town hostelry takes you at last to the vibrantly adorned, draped and fairy-lit cafes of Train Street.  You sit on your stool in trackside prime position with your thirst-quenching passionfruit smoothie.

Then it's time!  The practiced shouts and whistles of the café owners, the flimsy wooden tables and the tiny stools are whisked back with military precision.  Something the cafe owners have honed to perfection.  You shuffle your position, some even daring to stand precariously on their stools to gain that perfect Instagrammable, Tik-tok-able, facebookable pose for Hanoi's most popular moment.

The oncoming train sounds its bellowing horn one, twice, three times, then appears out of the darkness from the tunnel of rustling trees in the distance.  Slowly it approaches and starts to glide past the eager watchers, barely a foot from their noses.  The diesel smell takes over the evening air, almost feeling thick enough to touch, certainly enough to taste.  The passengers onboard staring back at all the cameras pointing their way.

The train rumbles past slower than normal due to the recent rains, it seems in no time at all that the last carriage is bouncing gently past the eager watchers.  People jump onto the tracks to get the perfect departing shot.  They scoop up their carefully placed souvenir bottle caps they placed on the tracks earlier.  The bottle caps having been crushed beautifully smooth by the train wheels, now the perfect ‘I was there’ souvenir. 

Your Instagram post is instantly sent to all and sundry, train street experience ticked off the bucket list.  Now you’re off at a dash, crossing through the traffic with barely a flinch, to that restaurant, you know, that street over there, with the best Pho in all of Hanoi (so you were told by that wise local).  You edge past the crowds and turn toward the restaurants sliding front door, the fragrant smells already enticing you.  You squeeze past a scooter laden with heavily with cooking oil barrels, enough perhaps to cook a ten thousand potatoes, hold on, was that the driver you saw earlier whizzing past in such a hurry?