The Road to Hell

It's fair to say that getting to work everyday is a little like the assault course on the Krypton Factor! Let me explain...

I'm 'lucky' enough to drive to work on one of the most dangerous stretches of road in the UK. Now for those of you not in the know, the A406 which skirts around the top of London is pretty full on at the best of times. And the little stretch that sees the M11, A406 and the slip road from Charlie Brown's roundabout converge is nothing short of a mobile lunatic asylum. Five lanes of fast and furious traffic hurtle along the pot hole ridden surface trying to switch from lane 1 to 5 or 4 to 2 without crashing. There is a fine art to it that basically consists of everyone for themselves and foot to the floor. You can tell the people new to the area or lacking in confidence or those who just really shouldn't have a license by the shriek of brakes, beeping horns, flashing lights and the unique sign language that follows them!

Now, I'm lucky enough to have visited some wonderful and fascinating countries around the world. And it has to be said that some of these said countries' approach to driving could have competed with my daily commute. Arriving in Hanoi (the capital of North Vietnam) was an eye opener. And that's after London! I stood on the pavement with my then partner outside the hotel for 10 minutes. Neither of us could move; the traffic (mostly mopeds holding 2,3 sometimes 4 people plus the weekly shop and the family goat) would zoom around any obstacle that happened to be in the way. We stood there perplexed. We only had 3 weeks in Vietnam and really didn't fancy spending all of it trying to cross one road. Shamefaced, we crept back to the Hotel reception.

"Er... how exactly do we cross the road?".

Fortunately we're obviously not the first Western tourists to ask. The gorgeous (they are all gorgeous in Vietnam) young thing smiled and said - I kid you not
"Just step off the pavement and walk. Don't worry, they'll go round you!"

So that solves that then. Just step off the pavement into the flow of upto 10 lanes of mopeds heading in a million different directions, with only one thing in common - great speed! We're back on the edge of the pavement clutching each others hands. We look into each others eyes and whisper the three little words... "Let us live!" and with that we plunge off the pavement and cross the road. And would you believe it? The girl was right! We walk, the mopeds drive and amazingly we arrive unscathed on the other side of the road.

The next stop was Cambodia and boy did we think we'd have it sussed. Step off pavement without so much as a glance, walk at consistent speed and arrive at other side of road in one piece. Yeah well, Cambodia had other ideas! Having survived a truly horrific flight that saw all the local people applaud when we landed we clambered into our first Cambodian taxi. After a few minutes it dawned on us that there were cars quite literally going in all directions and on any side of the road. Leaning forward I asked the question

"So what side of the road do you drive on in Cambodia?"

The taxi driver slewed his neck round and without even half an eye on the road ahead said

"Officially? Er I think it's the left but we don't really mind. Whichever side is quieter" (for the benefit of understanding I have translated this far more fluently than he told it. There was far more gesticulation which, inevitably, involved hands AND eyes being away from the road ahead).

We will NEVER, EVER complain about the driving in London again I thought!

Ok, so I lied!