Dear Mom,
When visitors come to Vietnam there's really only one scary time, and it's REALLY scary: it's the first time we cross the road.
The newbies often trail cautiously behind, creating an effect like a line of ducklings, with me at the lead like Mama Duck. It's the worst possible line to present to the oncoming traffic. Ducklings NO!
And then when we get them midway across the traffic, they look to their right (correct) and see a gap of traffic (okay) and then make a break for it, bolting across to the other side (NO! This is so scary for Mama Duck!).
We're going to keep moving, slowly and consistently. We're going to present a narrow target to the oncoming traffic. I'll be upstream, uptraffic, and all the newbies can be downstream, safe in my "traffic shadow." It might be that we combine with another group because there is power in numbers (a driver is more cautious about a group than about a solo crosser).
White lines don't have meaning. You can cross anywhere, and traffic behaves the same whether there are lines or not.
My nephew visited recently and then posted about traffic and crossing traffic and did a terrific job of it @ https://saintwerewolf.com/vietnam/#walking, including this gif that caught my attention. Funny because it's so true.
Love,
Tim/Janet