Controlled. Sterile. Outdated. Clean. Quiet.

Think of a 1960's over sized communist processing facility, only silent and empty, with army guards posted on every checkout gate with a computer straight out of 1987. Getting off the half empty plane, and walking across the tarmac and into Vietnam's biggest airport was a somewhat confronting experience.

From the machine gun turrets on the airstrip, to the army guards patrolling inside the airport, you really got the impression that this country controls its citizens with an iron fist. The silent, clean and monitored communist airport was such a contrast to the overbearingly capitalist approach to the airport in Bangkok, which was full of advertising, stores and people selling tours, souvenirs and anything else you could wish for.

And I have to admit, I liked it. There were no people to queue behind, dodge or avoid. Simply walk off the plane, out into the empty airport, get your passport stamped by Mr Red Army at the gate, and you were on your way.

Controlled, sterile, outdated, clean and quiet - that is until you get to the outside of the airport. At which point, you have a fence which prevents those that are not flying from entering the terminal at all. And behind that fence are people. 60 million of them. All smiling, all watching eagerly to catch a glimpse of some famous person that they have never met. At least, that's the way it felt.

Sardines in a can have space to stretch out and lounge around compared to this.

Spenny, Hinton and I walked out the gates, past the fence of people all smiling and watching, and off to find a taxi. From the moment we drove out the boom gates of the airport, that controlled, sterile, clean and quiet environment was all but a distant memory. The original plan of the boys tour, was to get a few bikes for cheap, and ride them up the coast from Ho Chi Minh to Hanoi.

Now before you all jump up and down and tell me that the whole Ho Chi Minh to Hanoi thing has been done before, let me say 2 things. Firstly, shut-up stooge. Secondly, it was while watching that very Top Gear episode that a conversation took place back and forth over the course of an hour between Hinton and I. Hinton was using his sales technique to get me over to South East Asia, a place I had never wanted to visit. Eventually I somehow agreed to the trip, and we decided to introduce Spenny to the idea very covertly.

We set up a typical boys night - Beer at Hintons, with Spenny's home-cooked hamburgers. The more beers the better. We told Spenny we had something to show him, and flicked on the Top Gear Vietnam episode... Of course, being drunk, we were laughing more than was necessary, right up until the point when we turned to Spenny and said:

"Boys holiday?" T
"Hell yeah! Where to?"
*Hinton and Will nod at screen*
"Vietnam?! - I don't know if I have enough hand sanitizer!"

So, we knew that riding was going to be tricky, we knew the traffic was going to be crazy. As drivers we have had to put up with our fair share of traffic, and we are used to traveling roads that are jam packed and out of control. But we were totally unprepared for what we saw. We never really expected to be driving down roads with it to be THIS out of control, never this jam packed. Sardines in a can have space to stretch out and lounge around compared to this...

Bikes. Thousands of bikes. Everywhere. Riding on the road. Riding on the footpath.

Traffic Vid 1. (link)

A typical traffic merge. Two flows of traffic somehow dodging each other... look closely at around the 25 second mark, to see where the bus nearly takes out the little man on the scooter.

Traffic Vid 2. (link)

Typical peak hour in Ho Chi Minh. Check out the man using his scooter as a goods truck at around 25 seconds in. Awesome.

No amount of internet videos or TV shows can truly prepare you for what has to be the most chaotic and dangerous road transport systems in the world. Forget road rules or common courtesy (which is on the way out in Australia if you ask me), it is simply a case of every man for himself.

Trucks, cars, taxis, buses, mopeds and bicycles all share the road. But instead of "share" the correct term should be "fight for survival". The first breakfast in Ho Chi Minh saw Spenny and I sitting in the penthouse guest dining room of our hotel, watching the traffic circle the roundabout in hypnotic fashion, the traffic ebbing and flowing from different directions like the tides. A gaggle of traffic begins to force its way through the roundabout, forcing traffic flowing from another direction to cede and give way. Suddenly, a mass of traffic including a bus, a truck, several taxis and 50 mopeds comes to a halt, and swerve and change direction to avoid a hidden obstacle. As the traffic clears, I can see what stopped the traffic flow.

A woman, in woman in traditional Vietnamese clothing, on foot pushing a bicycle laden with bags of rice has apparently out ranked every other vehicle on the road, and forced them off the round about.

It was pretty early on in our trip that we realised that scooter-ing up the coast was pretty much a stupid idea. I mean really, what chance do three white guys on Scooters have against this?

Oh... and did we mention at this stage, Spenny can't actually ride a scooter? Awesome. This should be good.