Zen and the Art of Motorbike Driving

Never in my wildest dreams would I have imagined that I would be behind the handlebars of a motorbike riding around Hanoi, Vietnam...or any city for that matter. But the motorbike has become my primary mode of transportation and I have come to depend on it like the air conditioner in my apartment.

Like in the States you have your drivers who are lost and have no idea what's going on, stop or slow down for no reason in the middle of the road, or those who do not look before making a turn and inevitably these people tend to cause accidents. When I am behind another motorist who falls into one of the aforementioned categories I want to throw up my hands and go, "WTF?!", but that wouldn't be practical...although, I do say it under my breath in my fit of road rage. One would think that you could simply beep your horn and resolve the problem, but in Vietnam and as in my experience in India, the horn is not to tell others that they are in your way, but that you are in their way. I would love to, as one of my colleagues demonstrated the other night, point a finger in the face of another motorbike driver who is talking on his cell phone and scream, "GET OFF YOUR PHONE!!!!" How these people are capable of talking or texting on their phones whilst driving is beyond me. It's necessary to be on your game and in the moment at all times because who knows if another motorbike, taxi, SUV or bus is going to pull out right in front of you. You have to know the difference between the motorbike and the car horns so you know it means business and you have to get out of their way.

I've found that riding the motorbike works as a great metaphor for my life. For example, if I'm driving down Yen Phu or Doi Can Street (two streets that I hate driving down because the streets are so narrow and there's lots of traffic) before I hit a patch of messy traffic with bicycles, cars and other motorbikes I think, "Oh crap, this is going to be so hard to get through", but once I'm in the midst of it it's fine and I deal with it like a pro. That's sort of how I approach most things in life: I think that they're going to be too difficult to deal with, but once I'm actually doing it it turns out to be much easier than I would have expected.