If you arrive late at night one of the things that might surprise you in Ho Chi Minh, especially when compared to other major cities, is the lack of cars. After a literal full day of travelling our arrival in HCMC went: passport control – bewilderment and overwhelm – taxi – hotel – sleep. It wasn’t until the next day that the sheer unholy volume of scooters and bikes became abundantly clear. According to Copilot, Ho Chi Minh has a population of 9.46 million as of 2023 and I truly believe that every single one of them owns a fucking scooter. It’s unreal. Nowhere is safe. You can be walking down a pavement and all of a sudden a 90 year old granny comes flying past you ON THE PAVEMENT. Chaos.
One thing to know in advance is that drivers here do not look. Neither to the side nor behind. They just go. At least three times in one day I was nearly ran over, on the pavement I might add, by scooters just reversing without once looking backwards. Why bother eh. Horns blare night and day. Christ even the deaf would complain about the noise. Unlike the UK and most of the western world, a horn here does not signify anger. Instead a horn here is used to signify one of two things. First, that there is somebody behind them because as I mentioned NO ONE LOOKS, and secondly that if you don’t move out the way then you will be moved out the way. This second rule applies to cars, vans and buses. On a fifteen minute taxi ride to the bus station, I counted (at least) 3 terrifying close near misses. Three poor separate folk on scooters were literally inches away from ending head first in the back of the taxi with us. Our driver, a nice enough man, spent the entire journey just nonstop blaring the horn. Even with the language barrier the meaning behind it became clear – move or you will be moved. It doesn’t matter if you are another vehicle, on a scooter, or have the audacity to try and use a zebra crossing (one of the biggest lies in Vietnam), a car blaring its horn means ‘I am going so you will not be’. The highlight of the journey was when, on around the third roundabout, a small bus came firing out of its lane and onto the roundabout, just as a group of scooters were moving round. The bus then proceeded to brake so suddenly that both back wheels lifted off the ground and the bus shifted all of its weight forward onto the front two wheels. The back wheels then slammed down onto the ground and then off it went as if nothing had happened. Just another day in the life.
On the note of zebra crossings, this itself is one of the most surreal aspects of Vietnam. Millions upon millions of scooters driving inches apart from each other with the odd car thrown in. If you want to cross you have to play real life frogger. Vehicles do not stop, if you are very lucky they slightly slow down. To cross it is advised that you raise and keep your hand in the air like a proud black panther (or Jota), maintain firm eye contact with every oncoming driver, and go. Do not stop for you will die. Do not turn back for you will die. Go with God and embrace the herd of scooter wildebeest zooming towards you.
All of this being said there is a true creative beauty in all the chaos. Name any object and I can guarantee that at some point you’ll see somebody driving about with about five of whatever it is taped round their scooter. Ladders, parcels, gas cylinders (usually multiple), whole shops, brooms, pets, multiple generations of a family, if it sits it fits, and if it doesn’t then just tape the shit out of it and I’m sure it will hold.
*If this is a small country then what the hell is a large one!
Now contrary to what the tour guide said at the Cu Chi tunnels, Vietnam is massive. It’s stupidly big. The fact you could drive for a day straight without stopping and still not go from the top to the bottom of the country is beyond madness. So being poor backpackers one of the ways to save money is a sleeper bus – gets you where you need to go and saves money on accommodation. I just hope you like feet because it fucking stinks of it. When getting on the bus you need to remove your footwear and place them in a literal bin bag, then carry them to your wee pod. The pod itself is fairly comfy. Wee pillow, blanket, curtain, couple of charging ports, a TV that does hehaw, and an evening trying to sleep while strapped down in a broken washing machine that honks (in both senses) all night long. For a bit more comfort you can forgo the seatbelt strap but know that you’ll most likely end up halfway down the bus, fired out your pod mid journey like a human blanket torpedo. All in all could be worse. We took the bus from Ho Chi Minh to Ha Tien. Around two hours after we left the bus station we arrived at what I assume is the Vietnamese equivalent of a service station. A sort of open market/canteen with toilets at the back. That in of itself wasn’t too strange, what was however was the fact that the place had a sort of river running through it and catfish the size of a small submarine just swimming about. You don’t get that at Harthill.
*Just what you’d expect to see after a two hour nap in the washing machine of doom, massive fish at a service station. Just another day in Asia.
The final Brucey bonus of getting a sleeper bus is that they arrive whenever the hell they want. The bus that we took arrived two hours earlier than it should have. Which wouldn’t have really been an issue if it wasn’t for the fact it arrived at 4am in the goddamn morning, nowhere near where we needed to go next. Wonderful. That however is a story for another day. While I may sound like I’m slating it, all things considered I’d use the sleeper bus again. Truth be told since being in Asia I’ve slept in worse, which is maybe more saying something about the quality of the other accommodation rather than the bus itself.
*There are many pods like it but this one is mine
To help you survive your travels in Vietnam one of the most important purchases that you can make is motion sickness tablets. This is coming from someone that drove from Scotland to Central Europe, then the Balkans, and then did the journey in reverse to travel to Ireland, via a ferry. Not once during any of that did I once suffer from motion sickness. One bus journey in Vietnam however and I’m having to snort lines of them just to keep hold of any food or water I stupidly ingested that day – who needs cocaine when you can have Nautamine. Honestly I can’t praise them enough, they are dirt cheap (around 40p per packet of 4) and so far have meant not having to carry around sick bags or spare underwear on these journeys…well not have to use them anyway, carrying them is still advised.
From crossing the road to big red neon lit buses filled with the ambiance of feet, travel in Vietnam is always an experience, for better or worse, but at least it is never boring.
Thanks for reading.