Some things, the tour guides just can’t prepare you for.
Zipping around Saigon, side-saddle on the back of a vintage Vespa Scooter is one of the boldest things I have ever done! Traffic is unreal! Thick rivers of humanity course through streets with no regard to traffic signals or lane signs. Cars, buses, bicycles, and cyclos all vie with the masses of scooters for the best road position and speed. Each scooter can be laden with whole families, hundreds of pounds of cargo or even livestock!
<iframe width=”560″ height=”315″ src=”//www.youtube.com/embed/xlAB1JYGf18″ frameborder=”0″ allowfullscreen></iframe>
I thought just crossing the street in Hanoi was a significant accomplishment. There is a real art to it. You watch for an opportunity when traffic is lightest and then step deliberately off the curb. Take small steps and keep moving forward in a steady, predictable pace. Scooters, cars, even buses pass in front of and behind you adjusting their speed and trajectory based on where they predict you will be by the time they reach you. Don’t run, don’t stop, and (for the love of all that is good and holy) DO NOT turn back! Your safety lies in your predictability and your trust in the flood of drivers washing across your path.
Once I got the knack of it, it became a pleasure to cross the street. It was a sublime, almost Taoist experience.
By the time our WanderTour made it to Ho Chi Minh City, I was an expert pedestrian. Time to move up a level. Time to get on a scooter.
Now, most tour guides will warn you not to rent a scooter in Vietnam.
There are good reasons for this. But I know (oh how I know) the temptation to join the pulsing flow of people coursing through every street and alley. Vietnam Vespa Adventures offers the perfect initiation into Saigon traffic to satisfy that urge: the Saigon After Dark tour.
My driver, Dinh, picked me up on a vintage Vespa at my hotel, gave me a helmet, and took me to Cafe Zoom to meet the tour guide. After a beer, chips and salsa (a unique experience in itself, considering this was the Vietnamese version of chips and salsa) we were off through the busy city!
It was a hot night and I was irked to discover that my thighs stuck to the scooter seat at these temperatures. After the first stop, I switched to side saddle riding to avoid this dilemma. I never felt so free as I did side-saddle behind Dinh scooting through Ho Chi Minh City, my toes inches from the scooter beside us and my skirt fluttering behind. His only English seemed to be “you ok?” and “hold tight” which was ample for our conversation.
We went to street cafes where my WanderTour companions and I were the only tourists. We zoomed around the historic french buildings, the Opera House, the Post Office, and Notre Dame. We zipped under the city lights to hidden corners of Saigon I would have never found on my own. Each stop was a restaurant, a cafe, or a bar. Frog legs here, bánh xèo there, and a delightful stop at a secret cafe hidden down an alley, up an unmarked stair, and through an unlighted hall. There, lovely young women sang accompinaied by piano and violin while lovers canoodled in dim corners. Some songs in Vietnamese others in English, it was the best refreshment stop I ever had.
When you are on a scooter with a million other scooter riders, it’s not like dealing with American traffic. American driving is an isolating experience. In Vietnam, you are face-to-face and side-by-side with your neighbors. You can smile at one another. You can talk easily with the riders next to you. You are a part of everything around you instead of looking at it through a windshield.
It was sad to end the evening. Dinh, the perfect gentleman, returned me to my hotel and took my helmet wishing me goodnight. If I were only in my 20’s again, I would totally date a Vietnamese boy with a scooter.
But it’s never too late for “happily ever after” is it?
Maybe I can capture that experience here and now? Scootering with Dearest around Columbus Ohio would certainly be different than scootering through Saigon behind Dinh’s expert maneuvering but maybe I should give Caitlin at Capital City Scooters a call, you know, just to see… (Click here for my introduction to American Scooter Culture)
Read ~ Write ~ Wander
~Angie
(Thank you Cafe Zoom for the picture of me and Dinh and Thank you Vietnam Vespa Adventures for a night of being BOLD.)