Moving portraits

Standing at the side of the road pointing a camera at people on motorbikes results in some interesting reactions. It's something I'm definitely going to do again now that I'm back in India until Christmas. Meanwhile here are some Vietnamese moving portraits:

Not best pleased



I'm ignoring you


Front seat passenger

New Motorbike Helmet

It's been put off for too long, we've been driving around with Vietnamese helmets knowing that they're not going to do a lot of good if there's an accident. Off we went to the Saigon Scooter Centre to get a couple of Italian Vemar helmets. We were 50% successful but I have to wait for the smaller sizes to come in in the next consignment. However the difference is very clear.

The one on the right is properly shaped and padded using excellent materials, it's light and comfortable to wear and makes you feel safe.

The one of the left is mine.

It's a plastic bowl.

A new seat for the scooter

We never did like the silver and white chequerboard pattern on the seat that originally came with the scooter. Plus it was slippery and hard braking would send us skooshing forward and clashing helmets much to the amusement of other drivers. Of course, I blamed the driver.



We went to a local pimporium and had it replaced with this much more tasteful (and less slippery) brown seat. That'll be 4 of your rapidly diminishing British Pounds please.

Shopping

A trip to Nguyen Trai today and for once I remembered to take my camera. I'm glad I did because I managed to track down the elusive ladybird motorbike helmets. I've seen them being worn but this is first time I've managed to photograph them in captivity.


Also available in blue:


Vietnamese shoes are wonders to behold, check out the ones below. Leopard skin fabric, gold spindly heel, equally golden platform sole, broad ankle strap and bloody huge faux jewel.



I'm prone to the odd fashion crime when it comes to shoes so there are times I'm relieved that my giant Western feet can't be forced into things like this.

While on the subject of shoes, you might think that Converse have a wide enough range of baseball boots and shoes to satisfy everyone. Not at all. They haven't considered the needs of the Glam Rock Seventies Revivalists.



Thanks to the Vietnamese knock off shoe industry their needs are satisfied.

Hello Kitty Motorbike

Personalised motorbikes are big news. This is one of my favourites of recent times.



Hell-o. Note the tiny paw print on the back light.

Wash Day

Part of the deal we had when hiring our scooter was a monthly service and clean, of course that all ended when we bought our own. Since the scooter lives in the living room at night I don't like it to get too manky so (being lazy as all hell) we found the local bike wash.

You sit on plastic furniture and your bike gets lifted up for a thorough going over. The bike in the picture isn't ours, despite my best attempts I haven't managed to convince Stephen that decals would be a good thing.



Lots of suds and spraying and wiping goes on and the bike leaves gleaming with even the boot box cleaned out. It stays that way for maybe up to five minutes.



Cost 10,000 dong (30p)

Helmets plus

Some time ago I posted a short critique on Ho Chi Minh helmets. At the time I was short of a few pictures but recently I've been travelling tourist class with my camera out snapping at random. So far I've managed to capture:

The wide brimmed helmet complete with hearts and flowers stickers which instantly turn a safety item into a desireable fashion accessory.



I also got the full helmet cosy, an alternative to the helmet skirt, this covers the crown of the helmet too and produces a bonnet effect. Maybe I should get one.



You can also see the full lower face/neck mask usually supplemented by a small face mask worm over the top.

On a traffic note, here's a picture of something I think is going to grow to obessional levels with me, the Vietnamese prediliction for personlising their bikes; Pimp My Moto 1


Animal print is always so classy.

Goals, to get pictures of people in matching Pimp My Helmets and Pimp My Motos

Helmet Chic

Since December 15th 2007 wearing helmets has been compulsory. At first the choices of helmets was fairly limited. This weekend I was at Hard Hat Corner on Le Lai to replace my cracked helmet and was overjoyed to see that fashion has reached the helmet market so quickly.

Prior to the new law people often wore wide brimmed hats to keep the sun off their faces while driving. There's no need to stop that even though you're wearing a helmet. The inventive Vietnamese have come up with a compromise in the form of the Helmet Skirt!

Fashionable and functional with a shiny green bow too.


For the girl seeking a bit of Barbie style.

Not seen one to suit yet?


Something a little more classy?

I was quite taken by the brown plush covered one in the middle, it has a look of the horse riding helmet about it. It was too large though so I had to pass on it.

Something for the gentleman, a lightly themed military helmet.


The goggles are shiny plastic and opaque so only there to fulfill the fashion needs of the wearer.

Or the more rugged helmet skirt for the man about town. Helmet kilt perhaps?



There are other helmet variations I've yet to capture:

The hand painted helmet, the ones with crystals glued to it, the decal salespeople who seem to specialise in Winnie the Pooh decorations for helmets, the helmet with a rigid brim or built in skirt, the giant baseball cap skip, the matching bike and helmet combo with decals in the same theme and the full helmet hat cosy.

Then there are the wearing styles. Helmet with hat underneath and for me, the holy grail, helmet with hat underneath and cone hat on top, seen twice but never when I had a camera with me.

I'll keep searching.

Saigon Traffic

The first thing most people notice here is the traffic. It is overwhelming and appears to be completely disorganised. Of course it isn't, it just has different rules and behavioural expectations than anywhere else. We read about crossing the road and watched traffic on YouTube before we came and what we read is pretty much true.

Common advice is to step out slowly into the traffic which will flow around you. It does, to an extent.

• Step out, obviously not INTO the traffic, wait for a gap or thinning.
• Be sure to look in the opposite direction to the main flow for someone going the other way. This isn't the wrong way, just the other way.
• Walk slowly and traffic will move in front of you, when you reach a critical point in the middle of the (mainly) oncoming traffic it will start to pass behind you.
• Reach the middle of the road and start the process over again.
  

These rules work well with motorbikes.

Cars don't flow, they might honk, they might stop. Buses honk anyway, don't flow and certainly don't stop and motorbikes, bicycles, cyclos and the three wheeled truck things made from motorbikes carrying four meters of metal piping flow around buses and cars directly into your path.

No injuries here yet and there's a certain cache in crossing confidently. Last weekend I rescued two septugenarians from East Kilbride who had been stuck in the middle of the road for five minutes holding a map and looking petrified.

I've been trying to get a picture that illustrates the traffic, I'd just about decided that only a moving image would do it justice but I tried a couple of tight in shots that give more of an impression of the madness.




This is a fairly normal street scene, the traffic isn't too busy and there's the normal range of things being carried by bikes. The man sitting higher than the rest of the traffic is riding one of the three wheeled bike/vans. No live animals being carried and everyone except the cyclist with the green lemons is travelling in the same direction.




This is more like it, all shapes, all sizes, all directions and more of the perspective you get when in the traffic, either on foot or wheels. You can see Government Information posters including, on the far right, one for helmet wearing. What you see isn't a midget on a bike but the bottom part of the poster. The demonic small person is a child perched between his father's knees. There's a big push on to get the populace helmeted and rejecting the traditional head protection of a basketball cap and/or ponytail. Even in the short time we've been here we've noticed a lot more head protection. So demonic small person posters seem to be working.

As I was about to stop taking pictures out of the traffic emerged a cyclo driver loaded down with bananas. He looked so poised and calm I thought he was a visual antidote to the mental stuff.



One last traffic posting for the moment. A few weeks back I put up some pictures of loads on motorbikes, I mentioned at the time that I thought the fridge bearers were delivery drivers. I was right, I spotted them outside the loading bay of Nguyen Kim a massive electrical shop where we bought an electric fan recently.



The load of the day, a fridge and gas oven.

Hoi An Images

The wet season seems to be coming to a close in Saigon, the wind has changed direction and it no longer rains every day. That's not the case in Hoi An. It bucketed down every day, usually two or three times a day. Umbrellas just didn't cut it so we got some disposable raincoats, the type that make you look as though you're wearing an ill fitting condom. They certainly keep the rain out but it's like wearing your own personal sauna and pretty soon they were sweat wet inside. Not a good situation so we fell back on plan B; when it rains go inside.

Going inside wasn't hard, there were plenty of cafes to shelter in, mostly serving good food.

The photo above was taken in a regular stop off point as we cycled to the beach. The observant amongst you will notice that it's not actually raining in this picture. But it did later.




The beach is a 4km bike ride away and despite the wet weather was lovely to visit. Maybe lovlier because of the wet weather as we had the place to ourselves and even the hawkers stayed away.


Hoi An is very pretty and well worth a trip. Food and shopping are top class and there's lots to see and do.

As always motorbikes are the main form of transport.

Bicycles are much more common than in HCMC


But it's boats of all shapes and sizes that are the most eyecatching transport.