The Cellar - May 1st, 2019: Hanoi

Hanoi has 7.6 million people and 5 million motorbikes, motorcycles, and motor scooters.
Most of those two wheelers are 2 cycle engines which make more noise and smoke.
But they aren’t just moving people, it’s how commerce moves in Hanoi.

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Motorbikes in Hanoi are used to carry everything—from a four-member family to cartons of eggs stacked to dangerous heights. Street vendors and delivery guys use bikes extensively.
These unusual cargo began to fascinate Jon Enoch, a freelance photographer based in London. “The huge pile of eggs, towering bags of ice or an enormous mound of flowers, was visually so stunning I started asking people if I could take photos of them,” he says.

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“Mopeds are a way of life in South East Asia, the workhorse of the city, carrying a vast and unusual array of goods” he says. “When I first travelled around South East Asia, 15 years ago, the number of motorbikes and mopeds just astounded me. Initially, that level of traffic that never stops is overwhelming to the senses - you wonder how you'll ever manage to cross a road. I began to be fascinated by the drivers and deliveries.”

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Hanoi’s traffic is so bad that in 2017 government announced that they would ban motorbikes and scooters by 2030 to ease congestion and air pollution.

Maybe in 10 years they'll have electric bikes and the tradition will go on.

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