Hanoi

For a newcomer in Hanoi, the traffic is the most formative experience. Anyone seeking adventure will find it in the capital city on every corner; just crossing the street is like survival skills training.

Yet the rapidly increasing road traffic is a major source of risk even for the locals: according to the Goethe-Institut, Vietnam is among the countries with the highest rate of traffic deaths. Although the number of people killed in street traffic in Vietnam receded slightly in 2010 according to figures from the Department of Transport – by 0.3 percent to 11,060 – the number of accidents increased compared to 2009 by 16 percent to 13,713.

There is no way to prepare. I read a great deal about Hanoi while still in Germany and even watched documentaries – but none of it helped. The first time I experienced rush hour in Hanoi, I stood in amazement on the kerbside and watched the dance of the masses. Thousands of motorbikes move through the narrow streets like a swarm of startled wasps. The dense traffic is one of the biggest challenges: the city pays it “high attention” and is investing in solutions, says Nguyen Hang Hai, Director of the Urban Transport Management and Operation Centre.

The honking is deafening; a big city cacophony. It reminds us that we actually exist within this mass and are not in danger of going under in the river of traffic. I observe with fascination how motorbike drivers squeeze themselves through any tiny gap transporting picture frames, flat screen TVs and even a popcorn machine. Among us Germans, the biggest kick is a case of beer on a scooter.

Somehow, the road users in Hanoi manage to weave their way through all of this chaos. Composer Pierre Oser, who has been working in the Percival production at the Hanoi Opera House, has a coherent theory of the rules followed in this insanity “It works because everyone only looks after themselves.” The moped drivers concentrate only on safely manoeuvring through the muddle, not on the traffic rules. In Germany this would surely lead to 100 accidents per hour, shouting and heart attacks; many of our drivers insist on adhering to the rules and taking advantage of their right of way. It is a fundamentally different attitude to traffic. The Vietnamese seem to live by a pragmatic que sera sera attitude – they look and react immediately. “The traffic here reminds me of an experience I had diving in Brazil,” recalls the German choreographer Henning Paar, who was also part of the Percival project, “I was swimming amidst a school of fish that kept to a certain basic speed and wiggled around me – but never touched me.”

In spite of all my admiration for the behaviour of the road users, I also experience the major problems that result from the chaos on the streets. Crossing the street becomes a Darwinian challenge. Traffic lights for pedestrians seem to have only a decorative function. And when I attempt to make my way down the street at rush hour, I suddenly get stuck, the lane is so narrow that the motorbikes and taxis back up all the way to the horizon, there is no moving forward and no way back until finally the moped drivers break out and zoom over the pavements.

According to the Department of Transport, in 2010 there were a total of 210 traffic jams that lasted longer than one hour, most of them in Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City and Quang Ninh. “Traffic jams are the biggest problem in Hanoi: the number of vehicles is growing enormously, particularly private motorbikes and cars. In addition, the width of the streets is very limited while the congestion is getting greater and greater,” explains Nguyen Hoang Hai.

Of course, the growing number of cars (an increase by 12.1 percent compared with 2009) and of motorbikes (10.3 percent) is a sign of growing prosperity. Yet, where will all of these vehicles find room? Over 2.5 million motorbikes crowd through the narrow lanes according to the latest estimates. During peak hours, the average speed for the little streakers is between 18 and 20 km/h, as Nguyen Hoang Hai calculated.

It is not only a problem of locomotion, but also one for the environment. By evening I notice that my throat is dry and has a bitter taste that wants to be battled with lemonade. I am no longer surprised at the many facemasks that almost every motorbike driver here wears and at their patterns – hearts and checkers and even skulls – that at first made me smile. I read in my travel guide that air pollution in Hanoi is sometimes worse than in Bangkok.

One obvious solution would be to expand public mass transit. But when I wish to visit a museum, I am warned at my hotel of the high crime rate on the busses and that anyone who has a motorbike would never take a seat in one of these vehicles. Nonetheless, I want to try it. As I board the bus, a friendly young woman offers me the seat next to her. The price is low at 3,000 dong – in Germany a ride would cost at least the equivalent of 35,000 dong. I am lucky and catch a bus that is empty and transports me quickly to my destination. In the evening, however, I see one in which the passengers are squeezed in tightly. “There have been major changes over recent years. The number of busses has increased considerably and the number of passengers is also high,” says Nguyen Hoang Hai. “Students and the elderly in particular take the bus frequently. However, the quality of the service is not yet sufficient and does not necessarily cover the citizens’ demands, who wish to arrive at their destinations on time. The busses are often late – for many reasons, like the many traffic jams – and the customers have to wait too long. The frequency of tours is also not yet sufficient.”

The prospect of underground transport is thus a blessing. “The Metro has already been planned and will be built,” explains Nguyen Hoang Hai. “Preparations for the line 3 depot have begun. I think we’ll have an underground railway between 2014 and 2016. Once it is in use, I am one hundred percent certain that it will influence the traffic situation immensely. Many people will use the Metro instead of the roads and the transport times will be reduced.”

Under the status quo, however, it is no wonder that many people prefer to get into the taxis, which are very inexpensive compared with Germany. There, just getting into a taxi costs 100,000 dong while a kilometre in Hanoi costs a mere 11,500 dong – and you get the chance to watch a driver with long fingernails talk on three mobile phones at once. But, it is no way to solve the traffic problem.

Nguyen Hoang Hai considers a few measures essential in order to make any significant changes. “It is important to keep the number of private vehicles under control and to give priority to public mass transport in specific parts of the city centre, while restricting access to private vehicles – so that more people take the bus.” The Department of Transport has a plan for expanding mass transit and pedestrian zones by 2020. Nonetheless, structural changes would also have a positive impact, as Nguyen Hoang Hai explains. “We have privately owned vehicles, busses, motorbikes and pedestrians: Hanoi needs a strong organization that manages all of them centrally. So far, there are different jurisdictions. Of course, they exchange and network information, but it is accompanied by frictional losses.”

At any rate, my own perspective of the traffic is changed as I take a ride as a passenger on a motor scooter. Becoming part of this mad, rolling society felt great and less threatening than from the pedestrian perspective. The honking horns suddenly sound like a song, the lights of the scooters enticing, the roar of traffic intoxicating. I am a fish in this living shoal. Maybe I will soon get up the nerve to drive a motor scooter myself – and go swimming over the pavements of Hanoi.