The reality of living in a foreign country is finally hitting home, in a big bad way. I am trying to determine my mode of transportation. I could buy a bike, or rent a scooter, or use the buses, or use taxis and Xe Oms, motorcycle taxis. I know ultimately I will end up with a combination but what should my primary transportation be? And the logistics are quite overwhelming when one can only say hello, please and thank you. Bicycles are cheap and convenient. People are used to bikes in traffic however 90% of vehicles on the road are scooters and dare I say that they are terrible scooter drivers. They just don't have the fundamentals of road rules. It's not like they know the rules and choose to break them, like in India. That is fine with me because at least then they are watching themselves. But here they just don't understand the basics like if everyone in Florida was driving scooters. Let me give you an example, I am walking across the street. My direction is clear. So I walk. Stopping when there is not enough space to continue forward, and like a good game of frogger, I occasionally have to step back a bit. I come to a point in which there is plenty of space for the next scooter to move around me so I continue but instead of speeding behind me, they clip me off in front. It just doesn't make any sense. It’s like these people have never been forced to take a driver's education in High School. (Total sarcasm – of course they have never taken driver's education.) Anyway, back to my original point which is I am trying to decide my mode of transportation. As just determined, the roads here are chaos and very dangerous for scooters. In college I had a moped which I loved and in Thailand I had been known to occasionally drive a scooter but the expat community is filled with accident stories. Of course I can ride the bus which is actually a good system but still it's the bus, slow and crowded, with people barfing. Taxis are not super cheap so it would probably cost me $5-10 a day. Xe oms are about half the price but then again I am on a scooter, in scooter traffic, the only difference between having my own and using a xe om is that they are presumably more experienced drivers. By the way, I have located 2 of my 3 favorite Xe Om drivers. What fun. Instant boyfriends. One of them however, the one already on my blog from before is looking a bit crappy and smelling a bit boozy. See August 1st entry on http://www.kkoller.com/weblog/CatVietnamIndex.htm So, regardless of which mode of transportation I select, there are logistic problems, most of which stem from the problem that I don't speak the language but also things like where do I get gas and park the thing.