First Weeks Abroad

Hanoi, biking, and a hospital

I’m having the time of my life. I’m writing this posted up in a Hanoi hotel room recovering from a minor but painful motorbike accident, and I couldn’t be happier. It’s finally hit me after two weeks abroad that this is my life now, and the unexpected is a welcome part of it.

Traffic in Hanoi

The insanity of traffic in Hanoi cannot be exaggerated. I’ve spent most of my time here in the Old Quarter, the historic urban center, which like other 1000-year-old cities has a road width and layout far predating the automobile. What’s unique to Hanoi (and I believe many Southeast Asian cities, but I can’t personally confirm that yet) is the amount of motorbike traffic crammed into these tiny streets, coupled with a complete disregard for basic traffic law. The result is rather beautiful: instead of putting trust in traffic signs and right-of-way, Hanoians put their trust in each other.

The traffic may be lawless, but it isn’t random. There’s a set of unspoken rules and priorities you can observe while watching a busy, light-less, sign-less intersection:

1. Right of way is determined by vehicle size: buses > trucks > cars > bikes. With the lowest priority, a biker’s job is to find a creative way through the madness.

2. Honking is not rude; it’s a courtesy and key to navigating congestion. It usually means, “I’m coming through, and I’m not stopping!” Buses honk at just about every intersection as they barrel through, and everyone else is expected to accommodate them.

3. Everyone is expected to respond to the movements of everyone else at a moment's notice. I spent most of a recent Grab ride hanging on for my life as the driver of my bike went through roundabouts in reverse, sped up to make it through gaps in packed intersections, and spent close to 10 minutes driving in the opposite lane dodging incoming traffic. And he was not the only one!

Parked bikes as far as the eye can see.

It's common courtesy to leave your bike steering unlocked so they can be moved into compact parking clusters like this.

This type of traffic doesn’t work without the dominance of motorbikes on the road. When I arrived, I thought I counted 5 motorbikes for every car I saw. The reality is 10. The ability for bikes to rapidly turn, accelerate, decelerate, squeeze between cars, pack four side-by-side in a lane, and dodge pedestrians is what makes 4-way intersections possible without lights or signs.

Whether these types of intersections should exist at all is another question (the answer from the Vietnamese government is no). Tourists get some privileged amusement watching the traffic, and residents depend on their motorbikes to navigate the congestion, but the congestion perpetuates itself, resulting in rising air pollution and accident rates. I will be watching Vietnam’s efforts to ban motorbikes in favor of public transportation in major cities by 2030.

Biking in Vietnam

Renting a motorbike in Vietnam is easy, as long as you’re willing to put your life on the line navigating traffic. After visiting Ha Long and Cat Ba Island, I decided to make a solo trip of the Ha Giang Loop, a famous mountainous region in the far north of the country - because who needs a tour guide? After a 2-hour lesson in how to ride a manual motorbike (my experience driving a manual car translated—thank you, Mom and Dad!), I committed to a 6-day rental at $15/day and received a route map from the motorbike shop.

Escaping Hanoi on a bike the day after learning to ride is likely the most dangerous thing I’ve ever done. I received two pieces of advice from the motorbike shop: give larger vehicles the right of way and treat traffic like a river and “flow with it.” Nothing could have prepared me for the dose of adrenaline that hit me as I took my first left turn at a sign-less, light-less intersection. The cacophony of honking from every direction, mass of vehicles zipping around me, and extreme heat (40° C or 104° F) reduced my memory of the first couple hours on the bike to a blur.

I rented a Honda Winner 150cc motorbike.

Other than the heat, things got easier the further I got from Hanoi. The only complication on day one was a screeching sound from my rear brake that the motorbike shop owner assured me was not a problem (spoiler: it was). I stayed at a lovely homestay in Vu Linh, halfway to Ha Giang, where I met two British brothers heading the same way. We shared a delicious meal and bottle of powerful homemade rice wine while watching the coronation of King Charles on YouTube as the homestay’s grandfather toasted to all things British (“to London!”).

We watched the coronation of King Charles live during dinner. The spread included fried pumpkin, roasted tofu with veggies, and grilled pork.

In the morning we set off to Ha Giang and got my brakes looked at by one of the many roadside bike mechanics—one of my brakes had to be sanded down, which fixed the noise for about an hour of riding. Many stretches along the route to Ha Giang were under construction to install proper storm drains, and it was on one of these stretches that I fell off my bike attempting to pass a slow construction truck on a dirt road. Luckily, I was going slowly, less than 30 km/h, and the fall was minor, aside from a piece of the bike stabbing into my ankle.

My bike in the middle of brake repairs. As usual, all communication was through Google Translate.

I fell attempting to pass this truck. If you look closely, you'll see a piece of concrete jutting out of the dirt on the left side of the road. That's what I hit when the truck drifted towards me. I should have slowed down and waited to pass.

I’m thankful I was not riding alone. The Brits helped push my bike to a nearby mechanic and supplemented my meager first aid kit for some roadside injury dressing (Paul and Jerry, you are my saviors!). The decision to turn back or keep moving was not difficult. We were more than an hour away from the homestay, deep in rural Vietnam, and there was little anyone outside a city could do for my ankle that I hadn’t done for myself. So, we rode on to Ha Giang!

My roadside injury dressing. Putting on that shoe again hurt like hell!

Visiting a Vietnamese hospital

The bleeding had stopped on the way to Ha Giang, but a shower revealed that my ankle would need professional attention. I had cut down to the bone, and the wound needed a deep cleaning. Google reviews of local hospitals made me nervous about wait times and what protocol I would need to follow to get medical treatment as a foreigner.

Ha Giang was small enough that no Grabs (SE Asian Uber) were available to take me to the local hospital on a Sunday evening, so the hotel receptionist called me a taxi. I followed a local inside to an empty reception area, and my obvious confusion prompted him to wave me into an adjacent room full of staff and occupied hospital beds. Google Translate was a godsend here. Outside of a few words, no one spoke English. I explained my injury as best I could to the nearest nurse and received surprisingly prompt attention — no one even asked me my name before I was led into a private room!

The nurse preparing my ankle before the doctor came in.

After administering an insufficient dose of local anesthetic, a doctor spent about 25 minutes cleaning my ankle with an array of metal tools. I’ll admit to being a complete and total baby during this process, and the stream of hospital staff who came by to watch me huffing and puffing confirmed my overreaction. Once the doctor finished stitching my ankle up, she sent me limping after a nurse who took me down the hall for an X-ray. No breaks or fractures!

I'm so grateful there was no serious damage!

All told, I spent over three hours at the hospital and was impressed with the speed and competency of my care. A staff member even walked me to the pharmacy to pick up antibiotics and called me a taxi back to the hotel. All for less than $40! My insurance copay is $50, so I didn’t even need to file a claim.

Post-hospital care is where I’ve really struggled. I’ve yet to find Neosporin, even a local brand, at any pharmacy, and I finally found proper non-stick bandages yesterday. The soft cloth bandages I used for the first four days of redressing stuck to the wound and made their removal every morning and evening a lengthy and painful process.

I’m still limping, but I’m on the mend and plan to have the stitches removed in a few days. I won’t be back on a motorbike any time soon, but I absolutely plan to retry the Ha Giang loop in the future.

Other thoughts

Hanoi is beautiful. Despite the Old Quarter’s popularity for tourists, it maintains a striking authenticity—the food, architecture, and energy of the area is one-of-a-kind. The night market pops up every Friday, Saturday, and Sunday in the middle of the streets, attracting huge crowds.

Tree cover and little bakeries like this are everywhere.

I’ve felt safe every minute in Vietnam. Contrasted to Italy, where scams and pickpockets felt like they were everywhere in the cities, I’ve never felt targeted as a foreigner or at risk of theft.

I was surprised to learn that pho and the banh mi, the two foods I associate most with Vietnam, are traditional breakfast foods (though now you can order them anywhere any time of day). Pho shops in particular are packed with locals in the morning. It was harder than I expected to find what I thought of as a “typical” banh mi with the veggies, pate, and meat. “Banh mi” is literally “bread” in Vietnamese, and many banh mi shops have some barebones offerings, like bread with an egg omelette inside, or just veggies. Imagine my surprise when I ordered a beef banh mi and there was nothing but beef inside!

This pork, egg, and veggie banh mi was the best breakfast I've had yet.

I miss full-size chairs. Many restaurants and cafes in Vietnam have nothing but these tiny plastic stools, which get uncomfortable quickly and are impossible for me to sit in with my injury.

These little stools are everywhere! Originally a novelty, and now the bane of my existence with a bum ankle.

Those premade first aid kits are complete crap. Mine came with a bunch of obscure items I’ve never used before (two knuckle bandages, really?) and few useful supplies, all of it low quality. I plan on rebuilding mine from scratch for future injuries.

Aside from some rude hostel-mates one night, I’ve had nothing but positive experiences with fellow travelers and have managed to make friends everywhere. One of my anxieties about traveling solo was meeting people, which I struggle with in everyday life, but it hasn’t been a problem at all.