Saigon Weather

PHAN DANG LUU

Phan Dang Luu is one of the major arteries for truck traffic coming in from the North and generally heading towards the Airport. Traffic tends to be heavy most of the day, but in the mornings and evenings things can get rather hectic.
Take last week for example. At the corner of Phan Dang Luu and Thich Quang Duc, the water pipes finally burst and there was no re-course but to dig a hole and fix the mess. This was done overnight and was ‘almost’ complete by the time the morning traffic buildup started. However, thre was a large amount of equipment still left in the airport direction.
Commencing at around 6:00am, the normal traffic build-up felt the effect. With the street narrowed to the width of a single lane, problems were inevitable. By 7:00am, they certainly were creating chaos. The traffic towards the airport naturally spilled across the street making 4 lanes of traffic [the width of the street], heading towards the airport, blocking any traffic coming away from the airport. Gridlock!
A helpless policeman was trying, without any success, to keep the traffic to the right side of the street, allowing things to move, but against a wall of motorcycles, this was impossible.
Quickly the traffic built up to the point of immobility and it required another 2 hours for things to get back to normal. Traffic was on the footpaths, both walking and driving. Vehicles were attempting u-turns to get out of the way and go somewhere else [who knows where].
We have captured the essence of this in a series of pictures taken from the bend in the road at around 66 Phan Dang Luu. Go to the Gallery Pages and select Traffic Jam on Phan Dang Luu, 13 December.
This is not the only traffic jam to occur in Saigon these days, but ironically it is on a street which has become a haven for new motorcycle sales. Just about every second shop is selling new Motorcycles. And every day there are countless trucks unloading new products for sale.