monkeys and motobikes

Ho Chi Minh City Pillion.

We flow amongst amazing grace and race down spindly concrete veins, the road face stares cold and chain smokes a million speeding cigarettes, glowing red and puffing blue smoke through thin cheeks.

Ahead, the rapids run. You always hear them before before you see them, and now, I tighten my grip as the pace quickens and sloshing waters turn to foam. My reaction reveals inexperience and my driver uses his experience to sense this.
He laughs and I try to relax, but again hold tight whilst white water starts to churn as the charging armies collide, their horns clash like swords and the feeble are forced to the footpath, the levee breaks in flash floods of fumes, gears and honking geese.

We pause among steaming nostrils and heaving chests, mechanical bulls on amphetamines barely stand still as they catch their breath. My nerves maybe made of steel, but I tell my driver “If I die, none of us gets paid” Actions speak louder than words and he hits pavement past resting beasts, and skims the edges of oncoming death, our back wheel barely scapes the closing gaps between human mincemeat machines.
This. Man. Is. Bat. Shit. Crazy.
There isn’t really a right side and a wrong side, but now, compared to the smooth flow of glowing cigarettes, this is nuclear war. Blazing one eyed war heads wizz about my dizzy head as we paddle up stream to where finally the rapids ease, the darkness gently falls and we coast slow to the shallows.
I jump down unfurl my limbs let them swing lazy in the safety of the hot still night. He grins and asks If I enjoyed the ride?
We laugh and slap backs and I walk away, shaking on solid ground. I wonder if he’ll ever bother to find out the translation to ‘you bastard’