A Stranger in the Land of Vietnam

My first outing onto the streets of Vietnam was very exhilarating and downright terrifying. Mom and I made a trip to the jewelers down the street from my grandma's house to exchange U.S. dollars into Vietnamese dong. (If you were curious, the current exchange rate is $1 USD = $20,960 VND). As my mom and I were walking down the street, I kept getting stares from passersby. Apparently, I do not look like your typical Vietnamese girl. Every single person turned their heads to look at me. I do not have the build of a Vietnamese girl nor do I have the face of one. However, I didn't notice this because I was distracted by the fact that a motorbike was about to run me down or that people use their car horns like it's a turn signal. Just an example of how the streets of Vietnam look:

It doesn't look that scary in still photography but believe me when I say I was afraid for my life. There is a strange organized chaos that Vietnamese drivers have. They don't believe in lanes or turn signals. Turn signals are only if you are turning left or right. If you're switching lanes, you honk your horn as you're doing it. One way streets? You can still drive down it if you make your way carefully across to the correct direction. Stop lights have timers on them to tell you how many seconds are left on the red or green light. If there are about 3 or 4 seconds left of the red light, one is allowed to start driving through the intersection. In all of this chaos and bending of the rules, I have yet to witness a car crash. Motorbikes will slow down or speed up to avoid a crash and somehow in the madness it all works. Here's an idea of the organized chaos:

The best way to travel around Saigon is on a motorbike. It's easier to maneuver through traffic and doesn't cost or as time consuming as a taxi and I will be spending a lot of my trip on the back of motorbikes.