It is true that a fully functional horn is just as important as two fully functioning wheels when it comes to driving in Hanoi. Some are rusty, some are loud, some sound suspiciously police-like – but when someone presses it, what are they trying to say? My first explanation from a local came within half an hour of my arrival in Hanoi. ‘It means “I’m here, watch out for me!”’, he said. But this seems a little too polite for me.

I often imagine city traffic in terms of an underwater food chain – buses represent sharks; 4x4s as your slightly smaller predator; your average car as, let’s say, tuna; and the ubiquitous and plentiful motorbike as shrimp. Pedestrians and bicycles are mere plankton.

Some argue honking means “Get out of the way! I want to overtake you!”. But what if the lone motor driver honking furiously in a cloud of bus fumes, hopelessly hemmed in by other road users?

Then there’s the hardy (some would say completely downright bloody stupid) souls who choose eight and not two wheels as their transport of choice. Ok, I can count the people I’ve seen weaving through Hanoian streets on rollerblades on one hand. But maybe this has something to do with the fact they don’t actually last that long.

The countdown traffic lights also cause moments of severe dread. At first I thought they were a good idea. ‘That is something we could do with back at home’, I thought. Lets people prepare themselves, lets people know they don’t have to wait that long, that sort of thing. But now I have realised that all it does is create those few seconds of enormous death-defying peril when everyone thinks that going three seconds too early or three seconds too late won’t do any harm. Cue hilarity if you’re watching from afar; sheer terror if you’re involved.

Number 4 is more in admiration rather than confusion. The things and sheer amount of things that Vietnamese people manage to transport on motorbikes are truly magnificent. A 12ft x 6ft photo frame? Easy. Eight crates of beer? That’s delivery driving 101. Fifteen piglets? No problem. However, I am still waiting for someone to trump the gentleman I witnessed driving, hunched over, with a double mattress bungee-corded to his back.  Bravo sir, bravo.

For a city which depends on motorbikes as it’s lifeblood you’d think that the wheels define the man. But a bashed-up Honda Dream is somewhat equal to its younger brother the Wave when it comes to street cred – it’s the moves that define the man. However, the car seems to be a completely different story.

I understand why people drive supercars but I still don’t understand why they choose to do it in certain places. Expensive Porsches and Audis seem to lose all of their glamour while ungainly trudging through the Old Quarter. I certainly don’t begrudge anyone a supercar but it must be hugely frustrating sitting in luxury while Honda 50 Supercubs continue to whizz by. The English artisan William Morris once said ‘Nothing useless can be truly beautiful’ – and if he were still writing today (in Hanoi) – he couldn’t be more apt.

What has to be said is that for all the chaos, rule breaking and decidedly dodgy driving that goes on in Vietnam everything - somehow - seems to work. It also has to be said that although drivers in Vietnam may not always be the safest, they are certainly good at it. Seeing a Xe Om weave and edge his way through a clogged road with a combination of skilful footwork and neat spatial awareness is a sight to behold. The delivery drivers previously mentioned, women effortlessly changing gear in high heels, bicycle riders proudly standing their own – how do they all do it?    

I have given up any hope of ever understanding the true ins and outs of the road. But maybe this is a good thing. I just sit back and enjoy the ridiculousness of it all; but please God, I pray to you, just get me there in one piece...
                                                              
                                                                                                                                 Paul Wilson