Look Mom, No Motorcycles!

I’m not trying to make the argument that a repressive government is a good thing to have, but there are some things that a totalitarian government can do that democracies cannot.  And it is to dictate what they think is a good idea without regards to whether anyone else cares about their idea of what could be good or bad.  In the US we spend billions arguing whether healthcare would be good or bad for the people and for business, but in a totalitarian estate, what is decided by the few goes.

Last week we visited the country of Myanmar (formerly Burma) to start witnessing some of the changes the “more user-friendly” military government is doing in the country to alleviate the burden on their people and now to encourage outside visitors to start coming in.   In addition to having been isolated for a number of years, you also have to factor the difference in culture, language, royalty, and ethnic background from any of its neighbors.   There is so much more history on this side of the world that the differences in all those factors lingers for many generations.

Case in point is our experience with the motorcycles.  Each country has handled the motorcycles in a different way.   Thailand is probably in the middle of the road when it comes to that.  There are many motorcycles riding around but you can at least see cars in between.  The top (or is it the bottom) of the list for us is Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam.  Another totalitarian government, which went a different way.   They figured that their people needed cheap transportation and they let them have motorcycles.  And on the other side is Myanmar, they must have figured that motorcycles are noisy, unsafe and polluting so they decided that their people were not going to have any of that.

It was almost a shock to us to find a city without a single motorcycle riding around.  I have to admit that I didn’t really miss them.  The streets were relatively quiet.  Walking around felt safe from being assaulted by a rough motorcycle on the sidewalk like is common here in Thailand.  And in combination with all their greenery, the air felt actually clean and breathable.

In conclusion, two repressive governments, two very different ways to handle a problem.  History will ultimately be the judge but thus far I liked the outcome in Myanmar rather than HCMC so far.

As a contrast from Myanmar, I’m posting here a short video I took of an intersection in a major street in HCMC.  I dare you to try to cross any of those streets by foot.