Pedal or power? Pondering motorbikes in Vietnam

I had just finished a quiet dinner at a nice restaurant and wasn’t ready to head back home. I strapped my air-pollution mask across my nose and mouth and pulled on my helmet. I turned the key of my scooter to “on,” clamped the brake and pushed the starter, engaging the throttle until it gently chugged to life.

I eased out onto the street into the night with no destination in mind.

It’s a cool night (by the standards of Ho Chi Minh City). The streets downtown are quiet (by the standards of Ho Chi Minh City). I look for side streets and cruise slowly along under the towering canopy of trees, passing historic, French-colonial buildings.

One street is completely empty. I open the throttle and accelerate as much as my tiny, 50-cc scooter will allow. I rush down the road feeling a sense of peace in a city that offers very little.

After more than a month in Vietnam, I have started to understand the allure of the motorbike. But, I also know that by owning one, I have joined in contributing to a number of major public health problems in cities across southeast Asia.

I’ve never ridden a scooter or motorcycle in my life. I’m a bike rider back home. And my naive image of Vietnam when I first began investigating the prospect of spending a year in this country was reminiscent of the image on the Vietnam tourism sign I passed one day in the street: A woman wearing a traditional Vietnamese áo dài (the national garment of Vietnam) leisurely pedaling along on quiet streets accompanied only by fellow cyclists.

I pictured cycling to urban markets among the crowd of people going about their lives; of riding between quiet rice paddies with iconic mountain peaks in the background; of traveling the countryside and mountains, riding from town to town, repeating journeys I’d read about in books.

It would be easy to romanticize the era when bicycles dominated the streets of Vietnam. It is, likewise, easy to bemoan the present-day landscape of crowded, noisy streets and some of the most polluted air of any city on the planet. It’s less easy to come up with a solution or event to define the problem.

I first arrived in Hanoi late at night after 24 hours of travel and slept just a few hours before I awoke, eager to explore.

The first thing you will notice, a friend told me, are the horns — the incessant beeping from motorbikes, cars, buses, trucks. After a while, you realize the beeping is not out of rage as it is in the United States; the horn is just used to say, “I am here.”

I came to a four-lane road I wanted to cross and found an unending stream of traffic. There were pedestrian crosswalks but no lights.

I had already read about how you are supposed to handle this.

I took a deep breath, and I stepped into traffic. As I had been instructed, I walked slowly but deliberately. I did not stop and did not change course. I was petrified, but it worked. The flow of motorbikes, cars and trucks flowed around me as though I were a boulder in a mountain stream.

For the first few weeks, I resigned myself to walking or taking one of the ride services that offer both car and motorbike options (climb on the back and hold on tight).

Initially, I was convinced I would neither drive a motorcycle nor ride a bike in this country. During my first week in Vietnam, a woman posted a sobering message on a Facebook group for expats living in Vietnam describing what she saw during a hospital emergency room visit:

It was like I’d stepped into a Mash 4077 medical unit, a war zone. I felt guilty taking up a bed.

I was the only Westerner there out of the 80 odd people lying on gurneys and I’d say 90 percent of them had been in bike accidents, with horrific head and body injuries. One man died in the bed next to me while I held his hand because he had no family at his side and at least four others were already dead or dying when they arrived. There’s no pre-op, the nurses were prepping patients for surgery in the beds next to me. The beds are moved around the room like Tetris cubes and priority is given to those that were more likely to survive.

A 2016 article in VNExpress International reported that every day nearly 40 people die in motor vehicle fatalities in this country, with roughly half those involving motorcycles.

There are few hours of the day or night when the streets aren’t teeming with traffic. At times, the steady rumble feels like living on the side of a speedway.

In a country of 92 million, there are 45 million registered motorbikes. The constant running of engines means most people wear air pollution masks when they are out on the streets. Two weeks ago, Saigon was ranked as having the third most-polluted air quality of any city on the planet. Hanoi was first, though motorbike emissions are only part of the reason for this.

It’s easy as an outsider to romanticize a time when the roads were dominated by the bicycle.

I’ve noticed as I study the streets that a couple different groups that still ride bicycles. First, there are older people, mostly women, who use the bicycle as a sole means of transportation and to serve as their business on wheels, selling fruits, meals and, well, anything you can imagine.

Second, there are people who use bicycles for exercise. I see older men who ride high-end road bikes in the early morning, navigating the rush hour traffic.

But, in general, intentionally choosing to ride a bicycle is a decidedly strange thing to do. I visited Batshop bicycles, an impressive, small shop that custom builds touring bikes. The owner told me that most Vietnamese think it’s bizarre that anyone would buy a bicycle that costs as much if not more than a scooter.

When I asked my students if they thought riding a bicycle was cool, they wrinkled their noses at me.

In his book, “Vietnam: Rising Dragon,” author Bill Hayton, notes that for poor rural families, the availability of motorbikes brought with it a crucial resource for families: allowing them to travel to nearby cities for work and to sell goods. For young people, often living in very crowded housing situations, the motorbike is a way to pursue intimacy, away from the watchful eyes of family:

“Saturday night is best spent cruising around the streets — boyfriend driving girlfriend, even if it’s her bike. Tens of thousands of preened riders while away the hours astride their polished chargers in a sinuous display of brashness.”

Two weeks ago, I became a motorbike driver. After two driving lessons from a local company, I rented a motorbike and use it to get around town. It is often a harrowing experience. Each time I go out, I have at least one close call — one moment I look back on and realize it could have been disastrous.

I remain conflicted.

I finally found a group of people who get together for Sunday bike rides. I joined them for a group ride in the country and learned that a number of them, many of them expats from New Zealand and the Netherlands, use their bicycles as a primary means of transportation. I also met a Minnesotan who travels only by bicycle.

I can’t help but wonder if I should join them. I could bike for fitness. I could bike for environmental reasons. And maybe by biking, I could convince others to join me, though probably not my students.

If only riding my motorbike wasn’t so much fun.