The Mindboggling Motorbikes Of Vietnam

Driving in Vietnam is like real life Wacky Racers. There are 23 motorbikes for every car and most of them have managed to tie, squeeze and balance incomprehensibly huge and bizarre cargo on the back. Meet a few of the main competitors:

1. The Animal Lovers

There are an estimated ninety million people in Vietnam, and thirty seven million motorbikes, this compared to less than two million cars. Everything has to get somewhere, animals included.

Of course it's a poultry task for the Vietnamese...

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Assuming they've got their best friend...

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Some protective headgear...

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Enough horsepower...

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And big enough cojones.

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2. The Removal Men

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Occassionally someone needs to move house, only there aren't any delivery vans on offer

Which can sometimes make it difficult to drive

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But the Vietnamese will find a way

And still won't leave their friends behind

3. The Comedy Sketches

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The daily commute is pretty dangerous. You continuously have to dodge ladders and giant unframed panes of glass carried on motorbikes, it starts to feel like a Charlie Chaplin movie...

With passengers almost falling off

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Or even floating away

4. The Business Ventures

Some Vietnamese have decided to skip the drive to work, instead opting for running their businesses from the back of their bikes.

From portable florists

To mobile green-grocers

To roving restaurants

All the way to travelling china shops

5. The Behemoths

Guided by the mantra 'Where there's a will and a battered up 50's Honda Cub there's a way', drivers defy gravity by bundling astonishing amounts of huge and cumbersome objects on the back.

Be it size

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Weight

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Or sheer awkwardness

6. The Meals on Wheels

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Vietnam gives fast food a whole new meaning, whether it's breakfast

Lunch.

Sian Cresswell

Or dinner...

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7. The Inexplicable

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Then there are those so majestically mysterious that you will never really know what you're looking at

There are those so weird that you woodn't believe them unless you saw them

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Those that seemingly bend the rules of physics

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And parenting

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There are some that shake the very pillars of civilisation

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And others that will just make you smile.

Kristopher Kotcher

8. But at least we can take solace in knowing it's how it's always been

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9. Alex Sinclair-Lack is a freelance writer and teacher living in Hanoi, Vietnam.

Follow his blog for more pictures of Vietnam's crazy roads and links to his other work.

If you're interested in the incredible teaching opportunities in Vietnam check out his exciting new start-up 'Teacher's Friend - Vietnam':