537

April 21, 2009
Thanh Xuan Peace Village in Hanoi provides shelter and treatment for 136 children and young people.The aim of the village is to care for these children and help them integrate into society. Most of them are resident there, except for about 20 children who live nearby and travel daily. All have physical or learning difficulties, the majority due to the effects of Agent Orange-dioxin poisoning.

Activities include rehabilitation (physiotherapy, acupuncture, linguistic therapy and other means of treatment), nursing, education and training of some simple jobs like sewing, embroidery and maybe 537 other things.

540

April 18, 2009
Fruit vendors sell their stuff anywhere they can. 540 items to go and this woman can go home.

541

April 17, 2009
These youngsters try to impress each other by repeatedly doing wheelies. They want to go as high as possible and of course helmets are for sissies. After 541 times they had enough of it (or they ran out of petrol).
This remote road is pretty quiet, but you can see this in traffic infested downtown Hanoi as well.

543

April 15, 2009
If you want to go shopping in Hanoi don't be surprised when the customers park their motorbike inside the shop. Usually when it is prohibited to park on the sidewalk. Sometimes it is nearly impossible to enter, when 543 motorbikes block the entire entrance. Once inside it may also be difficult to buy something, as that item you need is out of reach because a motorbike is standing there.

552

April 6, 2009
Although it's evening, with a fair amount of customers, there is no reason not to use a jackhammer. Why wait till tomorrow when you can do it now?
It feels like 552 decibel.

554

April 4, 2009
Not the usual "Cat Be Tong" writings on the wall. Graffiti is on the increase in Hanoi. Still, I bet there are less than 554 drawings.

555

April 03, 2009
On December 15, 2007 the helmet law was introduced. The street views changed overnight as suddenly nearly everybody was wearing helmets. All of them already had a helmet the day or days before, yet virtually no one was wearing one till that very day.
The streets of Hanoi were infested by police, who fined everybody they could catch. In the following weeks newspapers reported a drastic reduce of head trauma. But the news which caught my eye was quite different. Only ten days after the introduction of the law, it was reported that this law does not apply to children under 14.

Why?

There were complaints from parents, who said it was painful for children to wear helmets. This was backed up by various hospital directors. As if smashing their heads into asphalt is less painful and nothing to worry about.
So not many children are wearing a helmet. Sometimes I pass an accident scene where a child is crying or screaming and I wonder how this can be possible. Why children are not protected. It takes just one look at the traffic to see it is not safe to be out there with so many who think there are no rules and drive whenever and wherever they want at 555 kilometres per hour.