described as breathtaking. He drove on whichever side of the road he saw fit and at crossroads, even when he didn’t have the right of way, simply kept going. He reckoned that, as most people have mopeds, if there were to be an accident, we’d be fine.
Then there were the traffic lights — a graphic indication that Saigon is moving with the times. However, though they have been installed and are working, no one has explained to the locals that red means stop or that green means go. To our driver, and to all the other four million people in Saigon, they’re just pretty lights on poles which have no meaning.
By the time we hit the Rex Hotel it was nearly midnight but we were wide awake. So we went to the Q Bar.
And then we went to a dive full of Australians called Apocalypse Now. And then the Caravelle. And then some place where we sat on the floor and another place where we fell on the floor. And then we started to wonder if it was worth going to bed because it was only an hour until we’d have to get up.
So we had a cyclo race instead. The cyclo is a bicycle at the back and an armchair at the front. You, the big nose, sit in the chair while Charlie sits on the saddle, pedalling you hither and thither. To go across town costs about three pence.
However, if you splash out, your chauffeur will pedal faster which, of course, leads to a silent version of Formula One. The person with the most money wins the race.
There was something rather colonial about sitting there, cross-legged as a local pedalled as fast as he could to try and catch up with the cameraman. But it wasn’t until we found ourselves going six abreast down Saigon’s equivalent of Regent Street that I started to ask myself a big question.
What kind of a country is this?
If you can think of any other big city in the world where you could race in such a way, please let me know because, for damn sure, I’ve never been there.
Vietnam is relaxed because it hasn’t really been exposed to the full horror of the Western tourist yet.
You are occasionally pestered by street urchins who are trying to sell godawful postcards and I was pickpocketed once. But even though sex is very openly for sale, don’t be mistaken: this is not like anywhere else in Southeast Asia.
Because the Americans have been kept out for so long, there’s no McDonald’s, no pavement Coca-Cola dispensers and no one has been exposed to the violence of Hollywood. There are no gangs, and no one wears their baseball cap back to front.
You pay for everything with dollars but the government is trying to stop that. Under pressure from the idiots at the World Bank, steps are being taken to reintroduce the ridiculous dong.
This is a currency that makes the lira look sensible. To buy a street vendor’s postcard, you need a shoebox full of the stuff. To buy an authentic wartime Zippo lighter, you’d need a Sherpa van to carry the cash. Oh, but don’t be tempted, because on the bottom of a real Zippo you’ll find it was made in Bradford, Pennsylvania.
On the bottom of the Vietnamese equivalent, which is scarred and battered to give that ‘I’ve been through hell’ look, it says, ‘Rocky. Made in Japan.’ Western tourists are stupid but I fear even Wilbur and Myrtle will see through this ruse.
They will, however, be impressed by the products of what was Vietnam’s first car factory. Tucked away in a jungle ten miles from Saigon is a hut where 30 shoeless women and children sit in silence all day, chopping up beer and soda cans which are then bent and folded to become model helicopters, cars and trucks.
And they’re brilliant. I have a Citroen Traction Avant which, in a former life, was a Heineken can. The cameraman paid the designer ?5 to make a model of his camera. The guy was a genius but his biggest problem was a complete lack of artwork to copy.
When the producer gave him a dozen copies of
But then again, when he gets some Seven-Up Diablos out on the streets, he’ll have a damn sight more than a million I suppose.
Fired up with this success story, the Vietnamese government is now doing everything in its power to attract foreign car firms.
They have slapped a 200 per cent import duty on all imported cars, which puts even the cheapest Korean hatchback way out of reach of just about everyone. A BMW 7 series is ?50,000 in Britain but in Vietnam, you’d be asked for ?200,000.
To get any sort of sales in Vietnam, car companies have to make their cars inside the country which creates jobs and, when exports start, brings in foreign cash.
And as a final twist, the car company can’t do it alone. They must form a 50/50 partnership with a Vietnamese outfit.
But because Vietnam, everyone knows, is going to be the fastest-growing market in the world over the next few years, few motor makers are put off by the rules. Already, Fiat, Renault, Mitsubishi, Mazda and Daewoo are making cars and vans there.
But the biggest surprise of all is to be found at the bottom of a primeval backstreet in Hanoi. You pick your way through the foot-deep mud, dodging the oncoming oxen, to the factory gates, through which is a factory that is now making the BMW 5 series.
BMW sees Vietnam as the first country east of India where they can put one over Mercedes Benz. By making the car in situ, they’ll be able to undercut Merc hugely, but this won’t matter. One Vietnamese put it bluntly. ‘We can’t make cars. We wouldn’t want to buy a car made here because we don’t know how to do it. I want a Mercedes. Everyone here wants a Mercedes.’
It’s the same story with their mopeds. You can buy a Thai-made Honda Dream for ?2,000 but few do. Everyone is prepared to pay an extra thousand pounds because they want the real thing, the one that’s made in Japan. And never mind that there is absolutely no difference whatsoever.
The moped has become a massive status symbol for the Vietnamese. It’s their first, unsteady step up from the bicycle. It’s the same as going home to your neo-Georgian house in England with a BMW.
Let me put the moped in perspective here. There are 10,000 cars in Vietnam. And six million mopeds.
Get up early in Saigon and you will not believe what the roads look like. It’s a moving wall of Honda- ness.
They’re coming at you down both sides of the road in an unending snake. Some are carrying an entire family — father, mother and three children — some have pigs slung over the handlebars, one chap we saw had a full-height wardrobe strapped to his back. But the danger biscuit was taken by an enterprising chap riding pillion while carrying an 8 foot by 5 foot mirror. It made my teeth itch with fear.
While standing on the pavement, it looks like a completely random, large-scale demonstration of Brownian motion. At a crossroads you have mopeds coming from all four directions but no one stops. Even though they now have the added distraction of pretty red, green and orange lights, four seemingly solid snakes just seem able to pass through one another.
The only reason I agreed to take part was because the speeds are low and the worst I could expect in a crash was a grazed elbow. Actually, the producer proved me wrong a few days later by coming off the back of the fixer’s Lambretta and head-butting the kerb.
It was a remarkable injury, like someone had put one of his ears in a sardine tin key and simply peeled all the skin off his face.
But when I climbed aboard a Japanese-made Dream and set off, I hadn’t witnessed a single incident. I felt safe. Confident. In control… even though this was the first time I’d ever attempted to ride any form of motorised two-wheeler on the public roads.
It took a while to eliminate the wobbling but, once mastered, I have to say driving in Vietnam was a piece of spring roll. From the pavement, you can’t see the little signs from other riders, but they leap out at you like illuminated hoardings when you’re in the thick of it.
