Dante's Infernal Saigon Streets

Last night in my absentmindedness on the way to class I made a series of driving decisions that led me to believe that I had been transported into the work of Dante himself.

If one were to say that Ho Chi Minh City traffic were the Divine Comedy, that the Inferno was say, being on the corner of Nguyễn Huệ and Lê Lợi during the New Year flower festival and Paradiso was the new East-West highway running where Bến Chương Dương once stood, then District 3 is that purifying fire that is Purgatorio.

District 3 is probably my favorite district in town. It’s close enough to downtown to have a little gleam rubbed off on it but just far enough outside the rumble. The area is filled with classic villas and tree-lined streets.

So why the Purgatorio talk? District 3 is the prime example for urban planning attempts to control the traffic burdens of the city, translating to row after row of one-way streets. For the most part it works pretty well. Going from District 1 towards the airport you have alternative streets (Pasteur, Trương Định going out; Nam Kỳ Khởi Nghĩa, Trần Quốc Thảo, Bà Huyện Thanh Quan coming in). However last night I did an accidental mini-tour of the district after making two wrong turns and forgetting the limits of one street. Here is my journey into the District 3 limbo:

Here is a map of the journey. The blue arrows represent my route. The yellow arrows indicate whether a street is one-way or two-way.

1.) Driving down Điện Biên Phủ, my initial plan was the usual turn right on Trần Quốc Thảo, turn right again on Võ Văn Tần and arrive safely at Open University. However, in my non-mindful state I made a fatal flaw.
2.) Thinking I had arrived at Trần Quốc Thảo I turned onto Bà Huyện Thanh Quan (2 blocks too early).
3.) This was no problem, I knew I could take Ngô Thời Nhiệm and connect up with Trần Quốc Thảo again.
4.) I got back to Trần Quốc Thảo and was back on course.
5.) But my wandering mind would let my body betray me once more as I turned onto Nguyễn Đình Chiểu (thinking I had already arrived at Võ Văn Tần one block early).
6.) This meant I needed to continue to Bà Huyện Thanh Quan again. At this point I thought it probably best to just continue to Nguyễn Thị Minh Khai but I remembered Nguyễn Thị Diệu.
7.) What I didn’t remember about Nguyễn Thị Diệu is that it ends at Trương Định. Tempted as I was to take the sidewalk one more block to Võ Văn Tần , I played model citizen.
8.) Turning onto Trương Định (a street I had surprisedly not been on yet) I continued back to Ngô Thời Nhiệm.
9.) Here I repeated my initial journey down to Trần Quốc Thảo.
10.) From Trần Quốc Thảo I traveled down again and finally met up with Võ Văn Tần.
11.) The urban planners began to play harps and a glorious light shown from the streetlamps as coming to Võ Văn Tần from Trần Quốc Thảo you cannot go straight (the street ends) and you cannot go left (remember, one way). I could only go the way I had meant to go 10 minutes prior.

And thus my descent into the District 3 abyss was complete.