Ho Chi Minh city, not a bike-friendly place
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I decided to come to work in Ho Chi Minh City one year after graduating from Otago University (New Zealand).
When I first came, I had to walk or take a xe om whenever I needed to go somewhere. It was costly and inconvenient. After I had bought myself a bicycle, I felt so relieved, telling myself that all difficulties would be solved.
Riding a bicycle is not something new for me because in my hometown, Dunedin, there are many people biking on mountainous, rocky terrain. They can easily switch from a car to a bicycle not only to keep the air clean but also to keep themselves healthy.
However, it is hard to maintain this habit in Ho Chi Minh City.
Firstly, many Vietnamese conceive bicycles as the means of transport only for the poor. Indeed, on the streets, I notice only miserable-looking people wearing old clothes ride bicycles.
Many afternoons I look down from my balcony and could count only 5 to 10 bicycles among thousands of motorbikes hurling down Tran Hung Dao Street. Looking at the never-ending stream of motorbikes, I wonder if any of them ever gets curious about the amount of CO2 emitted from their vehicles every day.
Riding a bicycle, you can turn many people’s heads and attract more attention from others around than if you ride expensive, well-known motorbike brands like Dylan or SH.
Indeed, I get many eyes on me in the streets. People look at me and laugh on seeing a big foreigner riding a small bicycle, wearing a helmet. I wonder if I need to stop and explain to them that when accidents happen, motorcyclists or bicyclists, all lives are equally at risk.
Another dilemma of riding bicycles in Ho Chi Minh City is that there is no traffic light at some crossroads. As bicycles in Vietnam have no signal light, it is difficult for other vehicles to know if you are about to turn.
What’s more, perhaps life in this big city is so hectic and fast-paced that motorbikes compete with each other for every available space on the streets, never so much as giving way, slowing down or stopping for others. Thus, at crossroads, it is normal for bicyclists to stop, dismount from their bikes, wait and then push them across the street.
For safety reasons, I often ride close to the sidewalk but I always get harassed by the staff of many streetside beer-serving restaurants. Many tall, big men standing in the streets try to drag me inside even though I keep saying “No, no!”. That is how I am “welcomed” into cheap beer places. But when I visit trendy cafés in the city, all I get are forceful head shakes, sometimes accompanied by words like “Go, go [away]!” They refuse to take my bicycle, telling me there is no parking ticket for bicycles.
I wonder why bicycles are so discriminated in Vietnam.
Sam Grover (New Zealander, teacher at Super Youth school)
