Vietnam is very good at imitating things, electrical & telephone wires look like spaghetti.
Last night as we were walking to dinner, we found ourselves forced to run off the footpath into a the front garden of a house. Why? The wires above were caught in a very tall cement mixer, twisted around the large cement funnel.
The truck tried to brave it out initially, obviously thinking that if he willed it & pulled hard enough, he would make it through. This didn't work after a while so the passenger was sent out to climb onto the top of the truck to perform a kind of limbo as he held the wires up - barehanded - so that the truck could get under & through. As the truck advanced, the limboist stretched his body even further than imaginable until he was completely horizontal & holding onto the wires with his finger tips. We observed all of this from the other side of the road where we had taken scurried.
The wires are so long & so coiled that if the truck had severed them, they would have flicked a substantial distance, potentially hitting us, as well as taking out the local power. Locals were watching on apprehensively which was the surest sign that something was amiss, as we have not observed play stopping for anything in our journey to date. The truck finally through, we felt safe to continue. However, we moved quicker than usual. The very next oncoming vehicle was another cement truck undertaking the same comedic under-or-through-the-wires game. It was time to get out of there!
Top 5
1. We are not passengers in a large cement truck forced to undertake death-defying stunts at the end of a long day
2. We live in a place where wires are neat, orderly & provide continuous power
3. We were excited (& a little scared) to observe this kind of potentially calamitous situation as part of a standard stroll to dinner
4. Everyone survived & power was retained
5. The main protagonists kept their cool in trying (rather than frying) circumstances & seemed to be able to take this terrifying situation in their collective strides
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