Only in Vietnam!

If there’s one thing you can’t live without here in Saigon, it’s a motorbike, and bikes and scooters are a central part of life here.

If you don’t have a bike of your own, though, you can always take a motorcycle taxi, or xe ôm. Their drivers hang around on corners waiting for clients, and it seems they spend about 75% of their working day doing just that. While they fill much of that waiting time playing cards, playing chess or drinking (often coffee, but sometimes something more worrying), it’s not uncommon for them to take the opportunity to get some shut-eye.

Now, this is Vietnam, so nobody really wants to leave their bike unattended, or it may not be there when you finish blinking, so the motorcycle taxi riders have developed an amazing ability to sleep balanced on their vehicles. This guy is one of many I’ve come across doing so, but I never cease to marvel at the sight. They’re only outdone by the Chinese people I knew and observed who could sleep standing up on the bus.

And here’s another one I spotted about twenty minutes after the first…

I’m gonna miss this stuff when I leave Asia at the end of the year!