One thing North America needs to import is the unstructured, coziness and friendliness of the Bia hoi. That’s short for a couple plastic stools thrown onto the sidewalk, with some battered metal tables onto which litre jugs of beer are placed. Mix with random strangers and locals along with a steady stream of hawkers, cyclos, beggars and prostitutes and nothing gets boring.
I plopped myself down beside a guy dressed to go door-to-door for the Mormons but he was just a English teacher, out to quaff a few down after a busy 20 hour work week. Craig, an Aussie, was a peculiar chap. He seemed to be trying to escaping the rigidity and conformism of modern society. He railed against the regulations and endless rules of the modern state, but all with a detached shrug of his shoulders. “You see all over these streets (Saigon) no lights, no signs. People going any direction they want. It’s total chaos, but it works. It works for them. There’s so few accidents every year.” For Craig, Vietnam was a lesson for more developed countries. “Right here what we have is Chaos Theory at work. That’s completely what it is.” I’m not sure about Chaos Theory but riding through those streets on the back of a motorbike, no helmet, nothing to hang on to, potential disaster around every corner, I felt more alive than ever.
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