Driving in Vietnam. Definetly different

My weekend to Mui Ne was fantastic possibly because it was so nice to get out of Ho Chi Minh City and see some of the real Vietnam. I really miss the freedom and flexibility of having a car and being able to drive anywhere as I had in the UAE. However driving to Moi Ne was an eye-opener as to how the drivers drive.
The group hired a min van and a driver, 670,000 each return. We travelled north along the Hanoi highway, a dual carriageway. The road has quite an extensive shoulder if that’s the word, the edge of the road between the solid white line markings and the grass. This area is for motorbikes, so cars travel on the road proper and the motorbikes travel on the additional wide piece of asphalt close to the grass. Most drivers of the buses, trucks and minibuses seem to be an extremely tolerant species. Car drivers are the impatient ones and over take at any possible opportunity, and worse they frequently under pass, passing on the inside in the motorbike lane. AND often you are being overtaken and under-passed by two fairly impatient drivers at the same time. Another reason why tolerance is badly needed is that cars overtake, moving up one car and then they indicate and squeeze in, even if there is not a space. The vehicle being over taken has to ease back. On coming vehicles flash their lights and slow down to allow the passers to move into their own side of the road.. The traffic travels along between 40 – 60 kph on the open road which is why it takes 5 hours to travel 150 k. On occasions we were travelling between 20 – 30 kph which would explain why there are not the accidents we would have in NZ.
The roads are literally clogged with vehicles, both motorbikes cars and trucks and everyone moves along in convoy fashion. It wasn’t until we got well up the coast, about 3 hours up the coast, 50kms away that our driver got the speedo up to 50 kph