The streets of Vietnam don’t just move, they pulse. At any hour, they’re alive with food hawkers shouting over sizzling grills, cab drivers weaving through the din, and clusters of old men drinking cheap beer, laughing, and belting out karaoke with no regard for key or volume. Every block is packed with life.

Saigon’s traffic is relentless, but it’s not the choking, honking gridlock of Bangkok or Manila. There’s a strange order in the madness, a rhythm that only makes sense once you step into it. Maybe it’s the wide boulevards and the French-planned roundabouts, or maybe it’s the dominance of motorbikes, countless two-wheeled swarms moving in unison, slipping through gaps no car ever could. There are less hard stops, less jerky lurches. The streets flow, a giant organism of people and machines, every rider instinctively reading the movement of the pack.

There are still traffic jams, still crashes, still moments that make you hold your breath. But stepping into a Vietnamese street isn’t stepping into chaos, it’s stepping into something alive. The motorbikes don’t stop for you, but they don’t hit you, usually. They adjust, like a school of fish sensing an obstacle, parting and reforming without hesitation.