One of the most notoriously annoying (and defining) things about cities worldwide is the traffic. New York is known for its taxis, London for the double decker busses… you get my point.

Recently, I have been traveling around Southeast Asia. Before Cambodia, we were in Vietnam; our first stop was Hanoi. We got there pretty late, so it was dark out, but one thing was clear to us the instant we rode out of the terminal parking lot in a taxi: the streets were insane. There were tons of mopeds and trucks, and the concept of a ‘lane’ seemed to be non-existent.

After living in Thailand for about 4 months, I’m used to crossing busy roads without a crosswalk, or seeing motorbikes driving on the wrong side of the road. But this, this was different. This was way different. I’m talking huge plazas with tuk-tuks, cars, and people moving in all different directions all the time. It’s so hectic, a tourist can’t even rent mopeds.  

But the thing that makes this so amazing is the fact that there are very few accidents; as a matter of fact, I saw zero. At first it’s intimidating, but after asking your hotel owner how to cross the street for breakfast, it actually becomes fun (if you like being inches away from being knocked over by a lady with loads of durian on the back of her scooter). I must say, it’s pretty awesome to see how everyone navigates through the hullabaloo. It’s as if you have an invisible, impenetrable forcefield around you.

Luckily I captured some video of the traffic. It’s pretty… hmmm, what’s the word? Scary, no. Impressive, no. Well, I’ll just let you watch it for yourself. I also created a tilt-shift effect to make it look like a ‘toy Hanoi’. Enjoy!

*Note for the VFX savvy people reading this: I created the tilt-shift effect in Adobe After Effects with a simple masked blur (a camera lens blur with the blurriness set to 13, to be exact)

Lars Wagoner is a member of the Youth Travel Blogging Mentorship Program