Vietnam is one of the very few countries in the world where millions of people still use motorcycles as their main mode of daily transport. The country is estimated to have over 70 million motorcycles in circulation — almost one for every adult resident. In many cities, motorcycles are not simply a way to get around, but a genuine extension of daily life: they carry entire families, goods, animals, and even small mobile shops.
Vietnam was one of the most remarkable journeys I've ever taken. Not because it's a "difficult" or unusual place in the strange sense, but because it's a country that seems to live on a knife's edge: the past and present are constantly interwoven, the ancient and modern coexist in the same spaces, chaos and calm alternate without warning. We decided to go with my mother, and that decision made the trip even more special: it's not a trip where you rush from one attraction to the next, but where you pause to observe.
The first thing that strikes you when you arrive in Ho Chi Minh City — many still call it Saigon — is the sound. It's not the sound of a single thing, but of a thousand things at once. Motorcycles remain the dominant form of transport, and their constant hum is the soundtrack of the city. There's almost nowhere you can stand still without something happening around you.
In Ho Chi Minh City we explored the neighbourhoods, not the main buildings. That's where you understand how people actually live. You find street food vendors on every corner, people sleeping in basements to stay cool, elderly residents sitting on steps outside their homes watching the world pass by. The architecture is a mix of colonial French, communist-era construction, and ultra-modern high-rises. It's all disorderly, but in a way that has its own logic.
We spent an entire afternoon in a café that wasn't aimed at tourists, where the owner taught us how to prepare traditional Vietnamese coffee using the traditional filter. It's a simple thing, but it tells you a lot about the culture: coffee is a ceremony, a space to sit, not a stimulus to consume on the run.
Heading south, we reached the Mekong, and everything changes. The river is the road, the economy, life itself. Can Tho is the main hub of the region, and from there you can tour the canals. It's not like the mass-tourism version I'd imagined: sure, there are organized tours, but if you venture half an hour away from the main route, you find villages where time seems to have stopped. People living entirely on the river, houses built on wooden stilts, children diving into the water.
We visited a floating market, but not the famous one packed with tourists. It was a surreal morning: women selling fruit from small boats, children paddling to school, the sun rising over the river. What struck me most was the simplicity — it's not staged, it's just how people live there.
Moving north toward Hanoi and beyond, the landscape becomes almost like a painting. Mountains are covered with rice terraces that wind up and down the hillsides. I've been to many places with dramatic mountain scenery, but these terraces have a particular beauty: they're not just fields, but the result of generations of work, of a deep understanding of the land.
Hanoi is total chaos, but chaos completely different from Saigon. It's more compact, more ancient colonial, more... Vietnamese in the sense of an imperial capital. The Old Quarter is a maze where each street has its own precise purpose: one street is all jewellers, another all books, another all iron tools. It's not ordered, but it is organized.
After the chaos of the cities, we reached Phu Quoc, an island in the south. The island is changing rapidly: on one side still beaches where you can find local fishermen, on the other already mega resorts and luxury hotels beginning to appear. It's like watching Vietnam in real time deciding which direction to take. We rented a motorcycle (highly recommended if you're in Vietnam!) and explored the island toward small villages, away from the main beaches.
What stayed with me most about Phu Quoc was the simplicity of the fishing communities: women drying fish in the sun on straw mats, men mending nets, children playing in the villages. It's authentic in a way that's increasingly hard to find in major tourist centres.
Food in Vietnam is a constant surprise. It's not just good; it's very specific. Each region has its own dishes: in the north, thick broths and sweeter dishes; in the south, spicier and more sour flavours; in the Mekong, fish is the protagonist in every form. We ate in "tourist" restaurants and in tiny places where the menu was simply handwritten on the walls. The price difference was enormous, but the quality... well, sometimes the small place was better.
The people we met in Vietnam had a patience and helpfulness that was unexpected. Despite the language barrier, people always tried to help, to strike up conversation, to teach you something. It's not the Vietnam of mass tourism where everyone has a ready-made joke, but authentic Vietnam where people are genuinely curious about who you are.
If I had to sum up Vietnam, I'd say it's a country that doesn't fit into a single description. It's about moving from the total chaos of the cities to the quiet of the Mekong, from the cold of northern mountains to the sticky heat of the south. It's about seeing people still living in homes built on wooden stilts not far from luxury skyscrapers. It's a country where modernity and tradition don't recognize each other as enemies, but coexist — sometimes awkwardly, sometimes perfectly.
What will stay with me from this journey is not a single experience, but the sense of having witnessed something real — a country where tourism hasn't yet smoothed all the rough edges, where people still have their own rhythms, their own habits, their own contradictions. It's a rare thing these days, and Vietnam still has it — at least enough to continue discovering a country that still preserves many different facets within itself.