Should you get a motorbike while visiting Vietnam?

I am writing this because recently a friend of mine was leaving the country and he offered to sell his motorbike really cheap to anyone that was willing to pay 4 million VND for it. I don't really think I need a motorbike, but that is less than $200 and he is a good friend so I bought it. I have now had this bike for a week or so and I have driven it to exactly one place.

I don't think it is really necessary to have a motorbike in a city where inner-city travel costs around 1-2 dollars no matter where you are going, but if you want to go anywhere outside of the city limits, it is basically essential.

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A lot of people rent or buy motorbikes when the visit here or live here and for the most part everything is fine with that once you understand one major thing and that is that the roads here, and especially the road rules, are very different from western countries.

While there are technically rules here, you aren't going to see a great deal of them actually enforced. Speed limits and red light violations are basically the only rules that are enforced to any meaningful degree and you need only arrive at a stoplight to realize that there is a very good reason why this is taken seriously by the locals and therefore it should be by you as well.

There are cameras all over the place and also they recently rolled out a "snitch" program where civilians who record people breaking traffic laws and send them in to the government website will be given a certain percentage of the fine once it is collected. I laughed when I first read that but as it turns out it is very true and I have noticed people sitting under umbrellas at every single traffic light intersection who are wishing a mofo would run the red light so they can get paid.

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Renting or buying a motorbike might seem daunting for those unfamiliar with how the roads are here, but it really isn't very dangerous at all once you kind of start to understand how it works here.

For starters, there are no stopsigns and at intersections and junctions without lights it is basically a free-for-all. The way you handle this is to forget about everything you know about "right of way" and just slowly get your butt through the intersection while paying attention in both directions to people that will be crossing this way and that. They might merge on the right of you, they might merge on the left of you, there is no real policy here other than to not hit anyone. In fact, if you try to be super western safety guy, you could end up causing more problems than if you just get out there and meander through the chaos like everyone else is. One of the worst things you can do is to stop in the middle because the person that is is perpendicular to you sees you and is making plans to avoid hitting you.

This doesn't mean you should just bomb through every intersection, but if you take it slow and keep your wits about you, you will be fine.

You also need to desensitize yourself to horn honks. This noise in the west means "look out! I nearly hit you, you asshole!" but in Vietnam it is used so frequently that it almost doesn't even have a meaning anymore. Mostly it is to let people know that they are approaching, at least in theory. It is overused to the point where it doesn't really mean anything anymore and once you have been here a while you will kind of tune it out.

Another thing to keep in mind is that the idea that the person in front of you is responsible for checking mirrors before merging? Well forget all that. Whenever you are passing anyone you better just go ahead and prepare for the possibility that they are going to cut you off because while mirrors do get checked here I suppose, people will just fly all over the place and traffic is expected to accommodate them, especially if they are older. I know that this sounds crazy but the reason why there aren't bodies all over the streets all the time is because EVERYONE is on high alert as to what is in FRONT of them. As far as behind and on the sides is concerned, well, you are probably ok if you are in someone's peripheral vision but if not, you may as well be invisible.

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These crazy intersections seem crazy and i'll be honest with you, they are crazy, but a good system for getting though the entire endeavor is to find a local, preferably a truck, and use them as a shield. When I get to a busy place like this I don't panic.. I keep my eyes forward and get near someone else... there is power in numbers for sure.

I know a ton of people that drive motorbikes here and they are not super experienced motocross experts or anything, they are just sensible people who can adapt to the situation, whatever that situation might be. One thing that can really save your ass is something that I think is important just generally speaking: Do NOT drink and drive. The chances of you getting busted for DUI or DWI is very small here, but in the event that you do crash drunk you can be guaranteed that everything is going to get pinned on you probably with inflated fees instead of anything criminal. The Vietnamese courts don't really bother with such things and instead punish people monetarily and while that might seem counter-intuitive, it is effective.

The roads are very busy here, there is nothing that can be done about that as this is one of the most densely populated countries in the world. But if you just remain calm, keep your eyes focused forward and slow down when you need to exit a road that you are on, you are going to be fine.

Take your time and you will almost certainly be accident-free. That being said crashes do happen here but probably as a lessor rate than in the west, which is very surprising to me. There is something to be said about a country whose roads are chaos, but everyone knows they are chaos and accommodates others in the process.

All that being said though: If you don't need to go to a national park or something like that, I think that getting a $2 taxi is a much better idea than trying to drive on your own.