5.15.2005
Said bye to Can Tho, where we visited the Mekong delta and the interesting and amazing floating market, we hoped on the mini bus again moving toward to the last big city of our journey, Saigon.
To this point, 5 hours after we've arrived at the Saigon bus station, thinking about what had just happened to Ryan and I still makes me shiver and nervous...
Now, i have heard people, especially ryan who has been here two years ago, said that the traffic here is absolutely crazy, and i always thought "yeah, sure...big deal, i've seen crazy traffic in the three months od traveling before too...." But today, i mean now, i finally understand what people meant when they said "crazy."
This "life trip" that we had today will probably never be forgotten in my life. I forgot how reckless the drivers were a week ago when we first came to this country...but this time we brought ourselves maybe a hundred times worse drivers. They had no helmets, and no helmets for us as well...and they spoke zero English. Anyway, they started to speed up after we hoped on, and at the same time they were driving far too close to each other so that they could chat with each other. On the road, there were perhaps one thousand motorcycles driving with us at same time, and there were hardly any rules or any traffic lights. My heart went beating crazily whenever the driver drove close to each other and talk and joke around, because there were scooters coming in front of us in almost every five seconds, and there were also cars, buses, truck and people randomly walking on the same surface. I tried to yell at the drivers to slow down after a close accident that almost happen, but he had no English...and after about 10 times of almost hitting other scooters andRyan and I had a good deal of the motor taxis drivers soon after we arrived the station. Without thinking too much, we jumped on each one's motortaxi backseat and started one giant bus, i couldn't stand the ride any longer, i had to yell "STOP!!! STOP!!! RIGHT HERE..." since the driver almost didn't use his breaks at all.
I didn't remember how i got so brave and so frightened a the same time when he finally stop by the busy road. I didn't care if we've arrived at the place which we agreed. i only remember that wheni called stop, i was shaking, and i thought to myself it wasn't worth it to save little bucks to risk our lives like that. That don't recall any moment being so scared and angry before...
Standing in the middle of no where (i guess it's somewhere near downtown Saigon), i could not help crying while Ryan was frustrated and trying to figure out where the hell we were..."No more motor taxis, please..." i said to him, and he agreed completely.
Ryan and i just finished our first meal and found a nice room to stay in Saigon, and just now i suddenly realized that how much i disliked the T-shirts that we've seen during the trip saying "We survived Cambodia/Laos...", and how i thought they were silly and disrespectful to the locals and their culture. But I guess now, i will have a little new understanding when i see the T-shirt with words like "I survived Saigon!"
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