Imagine, if you will, if all the swarms of bees in the universe were released at the same time, in the same country, in the form of 50 cc motor scooters.

Traffic in Viet Nam, especially in the cities, is as insane as you might expect. This is the Kingdom of the Motor Scooter and everybody it seems, from the city centers to the rural villages, has one.

The motor scooter is the social nexus around which Viet Nam revolves. Lovers sit in parks, not on benches, but on their scooters, while they neck.

Whole families crowd on to single scooters, four or even five at a time. Every imaginable object is carried on a single, small scooter. The Vietnamese are an extremely
resourceful people, and they find every imaginable use for their national mode of transport.

I looked into a fairly good-sized truck that had obviously been built in someone’s back yard, and it had motor scooter handlebars: It had been built from the ground up using a scooter as the foundation.

Crossing a busy street here requires a Zen approach. Don’t dare race across the street, or you’ll have the imprint of a hundred tire prints on your forehead. Just saunter across at the same speed, with your head on a swivel and your heart in your throat, and the mass of scooters will flow around you like water around rock.

You are Buddha. You are untouchable. The Hondas are you and you are the Hondas.

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