Saigon; Ho Chi Minh City.
The first thing we notice are the motorbikes, thousands of them. The widest streets look like salmon runs, so thick and fast are the bikes darting in and out and slapping against each other.
Most bikes carry two people: young couples, friends, sometimes paying passengers. An elderly couple balances a grandchild between them. There’s a family of four on one scooter, Dad driving, Mom riding side saddle at the back, daughter tucked between them, son perched between Dad and the handlebars. A woman sails by wearing a sparkling white ao dai, long skirt, and white heels. Her girlfriend hangs on, in black head-to-toe. The taxi banks left and it seems like a hundred bikes are bearing down on our flank, their headlights blinding us; they all come to a stop, some with their front tires resting against the side of the car, waiting for us to complete our turn.
The bikes are backlit by storefronts so open and inviting, the goods thrust into the streets, that the low buildings that contain them are barely visible, as if a great bazaar of wooden stalls had turned to steel and concrete without losing any of its informality or urgency. And on every corner, brightly lit restaurants open to the street, filled with locals.
The larger buildings are a wild mix of styles from neo-gothic churches to Miami art deco to Soviet brutalism to Art Nouveau, as well as bland poured concrete, and most of them are painted orange, purple, lemon yellow, or pastel green.
The gold star of Vietnam and the hammer and sickle fly proudly alongside the billboards for Pepsi and Samsung and the neon crucifixes.
I see a catholic church in a classic modern style I remember from growing up in Dublin, all pointy rooves and stained glass, surrounded by a vast car park. But the car park is full of riderless scooters. And all the way around the church the roof is trimmed with green neon. The young Brandos must come here to worship the older Vegas Jesus, plump in his white jumpsuit and golden sandals.
A motorbike dealership. Kids prop their beat-up scooters against the wall and stare at the red and silver dream machines.
Geckos on every surface. From the car we see them silhouetted against the electric store signs.
Everywhere the staccato cry of horns, not angry and threatening as in New York, just turn signals, as in I am turning, watch and see whether it’s left or right.
The bikers crowd and jostle each other, swerve in and out, cut across, stop suddenly, and turn as if they were pedestrians. People who actually are on foot and want to cross the road just step off the curb anywhere and into the traffic, but slowly, respectfully, as if the motorbikes were big, mean pedestrians not inclined to give way.
It feels like the street life of Paris or New Orleans, the clamor of New York or Tokyo, the faded beauty of Havana. I haven’t felt this excited about arriving in a city since I first came to New York 10 years ago.
And that was just the ride in from the airport. We haven’t left our hotel yet.
Posted at N 10 deg 46.099 min E 106 deg 41.643 min
