vaga #1/ 21 Transport in Vietnam

Part XXI

this transport chapter is only taken from Vietnam, it will be rather graphic.

THE NAUTICAL ONES

Hue, the centre and coast of Vietnam, boats with bow dragons, like mastodons and many are doubled, one on each side they are like catamarans, here you can see the Chinese influence, those that were there for a century. Water trucks hauling gravel, during the journey the gravel is separated from sand, which impressed me they go at the water level sometimes you only see them because of the protruding cabin.

Hoi An, (below) near Hue, a very beautiful area it is a small ancient city where a river runs through it that was the trade route for centuries. 20 minutes away is the beach in the South China Sea with its round boats, I do not understand the logic, of how they move in a circle, one day I stayed a good time on the beach to answer my questions as to how they navigate in a circle. Yes, they can, I have a video and how they throw the fishing nets while moving in circles, but it is still curious. On that same beach, the most snobby in the area, full of resorts and even with golf courses. Among the ten restaurants, one was almost like the "Chiringuito" of Zapallar, (My favourite restaurant on the seashore in Chile) the truth was that I felt I was there, but surrounded by round boats that reminded me that it was not Zapallar. It is a nice place to stop with very pleasant weather at that time of year.

Halong Bay, one of the “10 wonders of the world”, as it is catalogued, full of islands, clear green and crystalline water with its hills in the background as a dramatic backdrop, the geography with those unique hills of “lime stone” is out of the question. On Cat Bac Island where I settled there are populations that live in boats, they are rather improvised platforms and have wooden frames on the sides, I imagine that at night they lower them to pick up the next morning and harvest the fruit of the sea. They are small floating towns, they have channels like streets, with dogs, satellite antennas, lights, I imagine that with a solar panel and there is a boat that travels just for them as a bus, or taking the island's schoolchildren to their platforms as I saw it.

On the way to a temple, two hours from Hanoi, in the Xa Huang Son area, the first hour was by mini Van, the other by boat. Hundreds of boats going up and down the wide, calm river. It was packed it was the Chinese New Year festivities which officially lasts 10 days and informally more than a month. The New Year is a religious rite and there are great pilgrimages in this place it was a huge, very famous cave, it is Buddhist. It is common for monks to meditate or retreat to caves in search of silence and without distractions, there is a huge Buddha carved in the rock. I associate the pilgrimage with La Virgin de lo Vásquez, but here the crowd is a compact mass that lasts a month. Human saturation like I had never experienced, especially when I went up to the cave for two hours, we walked all together sticking to each other walking, arm to arm sweaty and sticky at a snail's pace and with no possibility of return. Hence, the experience was intense, something already narrated in Vaga # 1tour "b" part XIII which will complement the day. Returning to transportation, since the only way to get there was by boat, hundreds of blue boats.

In the photos you can see floating supermarkets, past the cemetery, many road-type signs; How many kilometres from one place to another, the estuaries that flowed with its name, seeing women rowing up the river carrying more than 30 people.

Below, navigating a small tributary of the Mekong River delta. Upon reaching the immense delta, I saw it was full of cargo ships, passing or moored hundreds of others from small boats carrying tomatoes, chickens etc ... to oil tankers, all of them look chaotic as they move, they unloaded, it's a big a mess, nevertheless it works for them. Tremendous activity. Many families live on boats, both docked and not. The photos of this area I no longer have, nor did I think of a blog at that time because I found it ugly, one was saved where a child is bathed on a deck

MOTORCYCLES

"THE" transportation in Southeast Asia.

As I have already said that I started in Asia in Vietnam in Hanoi, my shock was the motorcycles, motorcycles and motorcycles like a plague of cockroaches. In the city there are 2.5 million. "Old Quarter" is the old centre, the pavements are the parking lots for motorcycles, so the street is shared between cars, motorcycles, street eateries, street vendors and hundreds of people. My first experience on a motorcycle should not have been important, but it was, being on Cat Bac Island in my resort, I had arrived in Vietnam two days before, and it was where I went to rest after Japan and get warmed up. I coordinated with a boy who was of help to me in those days. One was to go to see the island of monkeys I had no option, I had to take a tour. At the agreed time he picked me up on a PLOP motorcycle … … I thought it was a joke, the tourist Van was supposed to pick me up at the hotel especially if the only resort on the island was also all 7 blocks away, the pieces didn’t fit…. Let's get on the bike and I with a smile that nobody would believe, whoever saw me. The day I left the resort heading to Hanoi I coordinated with him to go in a tourist Van and the same thing, he appeared on a motorcycle and I told him I was travelling with my suitcase, a big suitcase which is all I have, I don't know where he put it…. between his legs, the handlebar could not turn it to one side hahaha

This image today is the most common for me, Uber also "offered" me a motorcycle, although they are updated

This is how they started, having lunch in Hue, the son of the owner of the place played with the helmet for a long time, it consisted of him putting it on and tying it on, haha

below are surprising photos, although I have seen worse, they were not registered on my camera only on my retinas like a motorcycle on the highway carrying several 6-metre construction irons or an ingenious adaptation for the disabled where on the side it had a side-car for the wheelchair, or as the one with the umbrella but at the same time she was carrying a baby in her arms. The bike of Diogenes Syndrome, the accumulators carried a quantity of useless dirt in sight of one of course. The photos of the goat and the pig are not mine, they are from postcards, but I know I could come across them at any time.