No Hoo woo during peak hours

Mr. Cyclo and his San Souci posse will be forced to work around peak hours for traffic in an attempt to ease congestion in Hanoi. The Hanoi People’s Committee announced that new regulations concerning the brigades of tourist cyclos meant that they’d only serve tourists and wedding ceremonies and must avoid the streets between 6am and 8.30am, 4.30pm to 7pm. Each cyclo can carry one adult and one child. I now eagerly await the first stand off between the proud mother of a groom and his merry-gift-carrying-men on their way to an An hoi (Engagement party) at 9am – Wedding Season starts soon I think. Did you know there are only 300 tourist cyclos drivers with a license to “Hoo-woo!” and the municipal authorities will not license any more, or so says the director of the Hanoi Department of Tourism. The cyclo drivers will have to pedal in formation as well – in groups of five with 50m distance between groups. “We must balance interests. We consider cyclos as a cultural characteristic of Hanoi, which is a vehicle to serve tourists, but the use of cyclos must not affect traffic,” added the director.