A new normal?

As I ride along in A Vietnamese night bus with some really awful local music playing, I've been thinking of all the things I now find normal.....

- There are no road rules. You can drive on whatever side of the road you'd like. I mean why cross the road when turning, if you're only going 100 meters down the road, when you can just drive down the wrong way? Seems logical to me. The important thing to know is you should yield to anything larger than your scooter.

- 10 year olds driving motorbikes

- Honking your horn is a form of communication, not road rage. Less than 20 beeps a minute and you're doing something wrong. However, the deafening horn of a bus is something that will never become music to these ears.

- Lighting a cigarette in someone's living room, bus, etc is not frowned upon

- Neither is rolling and smoking a joint in a restaurant, or any public place for that matter. Unless, of course, there is a police officer nearby. 

- Paying a bribe to the local police for anything will be ignored. Business' even get receipts for paying their monthly bribes.

- When asking a question to someone that doesn't speak English and they talk to their friends and laugh at you, it's completely acceptable to turn around and talk to your friends about them and laugh too. Such a mutual feeling of love I tell ya

- Choosing a place for dinner has become dependent upon the pictures on their menus

- Any of the following acts done in public: answering your phone in mid conversation with someone else, being completely ignored when someone knows you're talking to them, picking your nose, hauking loogies (not sure the appropriate spelling for this one), burping loudly

- A bus running through road block signs, while someone yells out the window the breaks are broken and watching the workers run for their lives while the bus drivers laugh

- There is a tourist price and a local price....for everything

- Western toilets with no toilet paper, just a "bum gun" or a squat toilet

- Walking into a pharmacy and asking for a box of Valium with no strange looks. It's the only way anyone sleeps on an overnight bus. 

- Getting to the shower to find out you're just in time for there to be no more water

I'm sure there's several that I'm forgetting, but as I ride along laughing at the crazy things I've learned to accept, I felt I should share them with you. Needless to say, there will be serious reverse culture shock when I land on US soil.