The One-And-Only Exclusive Saigon Motorbike Video Tour

WARNING: the title may make the actual video a tad anticlimactic.

Anyway, I wrote an entry on walking, so I figured it was only appropriate that I follow up with another transportation-themed entry. This time I will discuss the motorbike. There are an awful lot of motorbikes in Saigon. It is, in fact, pretty much the only thing anyone drives here. And everyone drives them. It's not uncommon to see what appear to be ten-year-old girls cruising around town on these things.

There are numerous practical reasons why the motorbike is so popular here. It's small: cars are simply too big to navigate the streets very freely, or navigate the alleys at all. It's also light, fuel efficient, and all that stuff. But the real reason everyone drives them, I've discovered, is that they're way more fun.

I have yet to drive one. I've ridden them several times now. My supervisor has taken me out a few times, on quick tours of the city. I'm also riding with him to school in the mornings. Today I took a xe om or motorbike taxi, for the first time. I didn't have the right change, so I ended up overpaying the driver, but at least this way he didn't try to extort me after the ride, which is apparently a common problem.

This cathedral was brought over brick by brick from France during the occupation.

Riding a motorbike through the city is a completely different experience than walking through it. You might experience the city more intimately on foot, but when you're cruising along on a motorbike, you feel like a part of the city. It's like you're one of thousands of little blood cells, flowing through the veins of some enormous . . . thing.

Rest assured, this building is very significant.

If you see a car, it's usually a taxi, or it's owned by a company of some kind. But the car for personal use is growing in popularity, despite its ridiculous impracticality. A car in Vietnam means, "Look at me, I'm rich!" As such a lot of people who want to appear wealthy are buying them (most of whom actually are very wealthy, since cars are extremely expensive over here). It's actually getting to be a bit of a problem: cars clog the streets and lead to traffic jams. Personally I don't know why you'd want a car when you could be crusing along on a motorbike, having a near-death experience every five minutes and getting caught in the rain during monsoon season.



I apologize for the horrible wind noise in the second half of the video. You might want to turn the volume down/off.