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At the Saigon River he was impressed by the discipline with which hundreds of automobiles and motorbikes, cycles and pedestrians made room for each other on the ferry they needed to use to get to the other bank of the river. It was not an officially enforced or indoctrinated discipline; rather it was utterly natural, like it was the most normal thing in the world to do. Naturally, there was a bit of pushing and jostling – but that too was quite organic, executed with an accurate mixture of urgency and respect. Without doubt some totally chaotic ways lurk within each and every Vietnamese – the only question is how deep they run in the individual.

It is a kind of social elegance with which a person in Ho Chi Minh City finds himself a place on the ferry. The Vietnamese manner simply cannot be compared to the way in which people use public transport in, for example, erstwhile Eastern Europe, where the system almost collapses when two persons wish to board a bus at the same time. Not to mention the fact that much more energy is required of a person who wishes to board a train in Transylvania.

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