Last scooter out of Saigon: the wonders of Vietnam on two wheels

The policeman can only chuckle when I ask him for a receipt. Middle-aged and portly, in a groaning olive uniform, this is probably the first time that he’s heard such a bizarre request.
My journey hadn’t begun well. Less than four kilometres out of Saigon (only foreigners and officials of the Communist Party of Vietnam refer to the city by its official name, Ho Chi Minh City), traffic officers were summarily rounding up every passing scooter and issuing riders with 750,000 dong (Dh130) speeding fines.
My policeman tells me that I’d been clocked doing 54kph in a 40kph zone, though I don’t believe a word of it; I’d been going closer to 80kph.
This is southern Vietnam: dominated by the seething, bustling, booming and beautiful megacity of Saigon. Even such a short distance out of town, the expat condominiums and manicured tennis courts have already made way for swamps and bushland on the south-east route to Vung Tau, a bright city on the coast of the South China Sea where expat oil and gas workers and Saigon city trippers mingle at weekends to give the area a distinctive and thrillingly seedy Atlantic City feeling.
I’ve just begun a journey that, over the next four days, will cover more than 800km of coastline and mountain passes on a tiny, 125cc Honda Air Blade – the only way to travel in a nation where motorbikes outnumber cars by a ratio of 18 to one.
While I generally see scooters as a bit of fun, I’d never claim to be an ardent biker. Bikes make me feel like I’m a victim in waiting. They don’t offer the protection of a car’s chassis and frame; they’re less visible; and if you do get hit by a dozy motorist, you know about it right away.
But when you and your fellow riders form the majority of road users, there’s definite safety in numbers. What’s more, Vietnamese road planners make travel exceptionally easy for scooters, giving us plenty of segregated and free-flowing bike lanes well away from the Innovas and Freightliners doing battle on the business part of the highways.
The beauty of bike travel is that you can park up anywhere to have a look or take a snap. And in a place like Vietnam, where you aren’t being challenged by cars and trucks, the freedom that two wheels gives makes the heart race.
There’s no question that Vietnam is heartbreakingly beautiful, but its landscape still comes as a surprise. I’d been expecting the hinterland to be undeveloped, full of peasants on packed bullock carts travelling from bamboo village to paddy field or shrimp farm, but the reality is a fast-developing network of neat, concrete-clad roadside towns and villages decorated with red hammer-and-sickle flags and overrun with coffee shops.
Vietnam might have had a turbulent recent past, but its present and future are thrusting. Until the country emerged as one of Asia’s new tiger economies, driven by Saigon’s commercial and industrial ambition, it was better known as a place best avoided by American teenagers. Now they flock to it with backpacks or oil-rig overalls.
The Vietnam War is but a distant memory, though, and, aside from a few war museums and Saigon nightspots with names like Apocalypse Now, there’s precious little to remind you of the United States-led efforts in Indochina.
The road to Vung Tau is brand new, part of the country’s seemingly successful effort to upgrade its road network to modern standards. The area to its west comprises the mighty Mekong Delta, with dense mangroves and soft wetlands providing most of the scenery as the main road turns into miles of bridges over rivers and swamps.

Source: The National