Hanoi is many things, let's start with the loudest

Hanoi is of course many things, but one seems like a logical place to start. And nevermind that two come to mind first. So we’ll begin with the primary denizens of the city, filling its streets like those industrious ants, buzzing through its byways fit to put the flies to shame. Even when they’re still, they line the sidewalks like ribs, or cluster in alleys that no one else needed.

Everybody has one. The humans that coexist with them. Or at least, every family has one, both kids held in mother’s arms while dad steers, and she’s not tense, it’s just too everyday for that. Because you have to take the scooter. Everybody does. Drives. Walking is a precarious dare, in among the handlebar horde, since didn’t I already warn you that everybody drives? It’s a feedback loop, 49 cc’s of inevitability.

I smile more these years after giving up on auto ownership, but on those times when I have to pilot one of the things, or more precisely when I have to park one, I wonder at the foolishness of people owning four-wheeled transport in San Francisco. Everyone should just have a scooter. You can fit so many more, scoot so much quicker, and get much better mileage. And you’re out IN the world, not hidden from it!

Why, how do you deliver dishware?

So while I love walking the streets of a new city for hours at a time, in Asia I always make it a point to catch a scooter ride somewhere. Rickshaw? Tourist gimmick. Scooter? Cultural interaction.

“Have you noticed how many Mercedes there are here?” my Vietnamese friend asked me yesterday. I hadn’t, but that seemed impolite. So instead I asked something I’d been wondering.

“Speaking of expensive cars, back home I’ve learned that BMW drivers are more likely to be assholes,” I haven’t seen any Priuses so didn’t need to include them, “Is that true here too?”

My friend scoffed. “Anyone in a four-wheel is an asshole here.”

Seemed true, on yesterday’s walk that took me along Hoan Kiem lake, past the Opera House, and through byways and backstreets until I caught a bus in front of the Soviet Friendship Hospital. (Because that’s a thing.)

Sorry about the blur, but you can still see his method, no?

So after dinner, somewhere off my map, I grabbed a scooter taxi guy dude thing. I don’t know if they have uber/Lyft here, but I’ve seen plenty of Grab Bike guys in their uniform green jackets and helmets. He handed me his spare, which perched on top of my massive cranium, squeezing a headache in but that’s the price you pay, along with about $1.00 to cross the city.

Taking photos while riding?
The things I do for you people. ;)

Motorcycles technically have their own lane here, a great idea, but traffic is a fluid concept, lane lines and red lights whizzing past all around like so much decoration as we squeezed between trucks and two-wheeled clusters, wrapped a roundabout and dodged the people going the wrong way. It’s another of those times when you just have to sit back, relax, and wait to see if you make it.

I did. Home, to another day, and tonight, I’ll head to another place. 300+ kilometers away, I think I’ll pass on the scooter this time. My overnight train is out there somewhere, waiting for me...

Am I losing my mind? Or just a piece?

With the help of cold wind, science, and other people’s road rage, I freaked myself out pretty good last night.

Pretty normal Thursday, rock-climbing went well, great conversations with friends old and new, climbed a 5.11D, and finished with a dripping burger and fairly gourmet tater tots. What’s not to like?

Then I took the train back to Oakland, where the wind was sneaking down into the station, chivalrous warning of the chill upstairs, so I stopped, set my backpack on the bench, and dug out my spare shirt. Warmer, I left just ahead of a loud crowd of semi-drunk and fully-young revelers.

Singapore traffic races

That would have been an appropriate time to remember the study I heard about a few years back, about folks mired in that most pestilential of modern traditions: the traffic jam. Specifically, the road ragers. The “I’m gonna beat you” in the daily non-race, and the “Put down your damn phone and pay attention!” and the “How f’ing dare you change lanes in front of me!” etc.

Because rage is aggression is animal adrenaline, designed to aid the muscles in fight or flight, yes? Well, road ragers behind steering wheels have no muscular output (sorry, twitching your calf doesn’t count) so that adrenaline just sits in the blood in the brain, and this study found that it’s corrosive as battery acid in there. Scary thought, n’es pas?

Why you gotta take yourself so seriously, car?
Chicago gets it. (What do you expect,
parking in front of student housing?)

Well I’m not much of a road rager these days, blessed by the benevolence of not owning a car, and when I do, when another bloomin’ BMW/Prius/white car treats my physical well-being with the same respect your cat offers the newspaper you’re reading, I can burn it off with quadriceps femoris, iliopsoas, and sartorius. Feels good. (Especially if there are traffic lights, cuz then I beat them in our little non-race.)

The problem for me is my habit of waking up a couple times a night with a wee blossom of adrenaline accelerating my pulse. No muscular salvation at 3:17 AM, and I worry it’s rotting my brain.

Never said a biker can't enjoy a little speed.
Somebody in Chicago agrees.

Which is why, when I got home last night to discover that I had somehow, preposterously, just left my pack right there on the bench and walked off, I was kinda freaked out. Another bitty bloom of aggression chemicals.

But I’d be less worried, less condemnatory and castigatory, if someone else were to tell me that story. After all, it seems like something people do. Just not, y’know, me. Other people can be fallible, but I should know better. Psh. I forgive myself, and there are worse things to be than a space cadet.

How you doin', Oakland?

Losing my pack wouldn’t have been devastating, since it held my climbing gear, book I’d almost finished, and bike lock, but I admit to a sentimental fondness for the harness and shoes that have given me so much joy over the years. But when I got to BART this morning and found my bag nestled under the attendant’s desk, I was overjoyed. Reunited, and it feels so good.

No one was in the booth at 11:00 last night, which means my bag lay there in plain view overnight. That no one would snoop through it was unlikely, and indeed, someone nicked the carabiner. But the fact that they didn’t throw the rest in the lake, or try to sell it under an overpass for $5, but left it to be returned to me feels like a rather splendid example of kindness.

I see yo over there, Oakland, looking all pretty

Maybe we’re not such a bad people after all, we denizens of a poorly-reputed parallel metropolis. Or maybe my shoes just stink.

Nah, I’m gonna go with a nice lack of greed and presence of kindness. I’m gonna go with gratitude and optimism. And who knows, maybe they’ll  repair some of the holes in my noggin. May you have a gratitudinous and optimistilicious day! (And take it easy in traffic.)