A block away, on a boulevard called Nguyen Thi Minh Khai, an armada of motorcycles, bicycles, cars, trucks and buses thunders by in near-anarchy. Few traffic police are to be seen and they are hapless. Traffic lights are almost non-existent. Drivers think nothing of riding on the wrong side of the street against the flow of traffic. Crossings and traffic circles are a jumble as riders weave through in four directions.
Pedestrians risk their lives crossing a street.
These contrasting scenes suggest that the Communist rulers of Vietnam, against whom the United States fought unsuccessfully from 1954 to 1973, may control the politics of this nation but they sure do not control its traffic. Moreover, conversations with Vietnamese, other Asians, and Westerners indicate that the regime controls little else and is failing to provide the basic services of governments everywhere. In most Vietnamese cities, police are notorious for stopping motorists or walking into the thousands of small workshops that line the bustling streets and extorting money. Tax collectors are reported to pocket a portion of collected funds. Bureaucrats who issue commercial, real estate or building licenses must be paid off.