The details changed, but it still seems the same

When I lived there, I didn't drive. I didn't have to think about traffic, or arriving on time. I could just watch, or try to read, or talk with other passengers.

The shops are all different, the goods for sale are different, and there are traffic cops instead of traffic lights--but the ambience is the same, the appropriation of the sidewalks as sales floor is the same, the get-ahead-any-way-you-can drivers are the same. I don't remember traffic being quite this slow when I was young, but last time I visited (2006) some streets were horribly congested--and at one point our driver decided to take a one-way street the wrong way. (We hadn't found parking and were trying to kill a little time waiting for my mother to get some money from a bank. I guess that was as good a way of going nowhere as any.) I remember there being more young boys with trays of candy and cigarettes and whatnot--nowadays phone cards are a big item, and when I was there so were bags of water.

It's only a few blocks on this map. There's a new road on the map--a bridge that would have been useful long ago.