Walking

In Minnesota I never did much walking. I think it had something to do with the amount of space. Sure, I would walk around the house, or across campus, or about town. But more of my time was spent driving between home and school, or home and town--or school and town, I guess, since I have to drive through town to get home. There's just too much space between everything.

In Vietnam there is no space. Anywhere. At all. No space between buildings, no space between people. Walking has become a part of my life. If I want to eat, I have to walk. If I want to buy anything, I have to walk.

Yesterday I walked from my hotel to a park which is pretty much in the center of town. It's the farthest I've walked alone. I was starting to feel trapped by the vastness of the city; how was I supposed to go anywhere without getting lost? Then I told myself to buck up. I had two legs and maps were available. I could walk wherever I chose. All it would take is a little planning.

Allow me a brief paragraph to rave about www.diadiem.com. It was recommended to me by my supervising teacher, and, when translated into English, is probably the most useful website I've encountered in my life. It's a detailed interactive map of Saigon. You can use it to see where in the city I'm currently staying: type in "171 Co Bac" and click "Find" (you'll have to translate the website into English first), and there it is. Go a little north from there (well, up—I'm not sure if that translates to north), and you'll find a big patch of green that says "Cong Vien Tao Dan." There's the park.


A view of the pond.

Walking in Vietnam is different from walking in Minnesota. It takes some getting used to. The first couple days I experienced intense "Crushed Toe Anxiety," an unpleasant period during which I was constantly afraid of having my toes crushed by passing vehicles (people tend to drive within half an inch of you). I also learned quickly that sidewalks are usually not meant to be walked on. More often they are for street vendors, or for the family dinner table. Occasionally you can hop onto the sidewalk to get out of the way of a vehicle, but usually you're walking right in the street, sometimes in the middle of it.


More park.

This is with smaller roads, of course. You definitely do not want to be walking in the middle of the big roads. You will die. You do, unfortunately, have to cross them quite frequently, which is another challenge. My travel guide frequently told me: "Whatever you do, don't stop! Just keep walking, they'll drive around you." This, it turns out, only applies in certain situations. There are a lot of situations in which stopping briefly is necessary to weave around vehicles, like when a van pulls out an inch from your nose. It's other situations, like when the road seems clear, so you start to cross, but then the light changes and you realize you have a massive wall of motorbikes thundering toward you--that you don't want to stop. As long as a vehicle is not coming straight at you, pausing is okay.


Here's a good example of the kind of hodgepodge architecture that is really common here; all over town there are shiny new modern buildings right alongside old dilapidated ones. It turns out the reason the buildings are all so skinny is not due to problems with space, but because during the French occupation, tax was based on how wide your house was. Silly French people.

The only thing restricting how far I go now is the heat: it's so hot here that walking even a short distance can be really draining. But yes, walking is good for you and all that. Builds character, good exercise.

The cleaning girl was changing my bedsheets when I came back from my walk. The balcony door was open. I should elaborate: there is a "mystery door" in my room that I have long suspected leads to a balcony (there is a photo of the door in "Pictures!"), but I could never seem to get the door to open. After the cleaning girl had left, I inspected the open door. How had she done it? It turns out the door opens by pushing out—not by pulling in.




Views from my balcony.