The thing that can be surprising about fathers is that after they arrange unexpected soirées at the horse races, they might also take a little business trip to Vietnam and bring you along for the ride. And even if that means you are only going to be in Ho Chi Minh City for two days, and with some work friend of your dad’s who “won’t eat street food,” you should totally go, because it will still be some kind of incredible.



Saigon is relentless. It is loud and filthy and people matter-of-factly step in front of you in queues and one morning a motorcyclist turned toward me and sneezed as he sped past: ha-CHA!. The motorcylists, good god. You think you know, but you have no idea. Swarms of motorcyclists in mad direction, engines buzzing. You stand on the narrow, cracked pavement, contemplating the fray. In your head, maybe, you start with a silent moan: mmmrr. Implicating yourself, you put one foot on the road proper. The moan comes to life, escapes through nervously pursed lips, a low, groany mmmrr. One foot in front of the other, you make sure to keep a steady rhythm so—you’ve heard—the motorcyclists can time you and seamlessly speed around you. Mmmrr-mmmrr-mmmrr!-MMMRR!! But after a couple of practice crossings, it all comes together like some kind of magic. You know how Keanu figures out the Matrix and it’s all glowing green numbers floating down the screen, and he’s all, “Whoa.” ? It’s kind of like that. That bit in “The Fisher King” when Robin Williams and Jeff Bridges are shoving their way through the crowd in Grand Central Terminal and with nary a transition the rush-hour commuters pair off and waltz? Yeah. Once you step into the street, the honking and beeping are but a percussive soundtrack to your own modern dance.

In Vietnam, you can carry anything on a motorbike. A bunch of all-color balloons, madly bobbing. A girlfriend, eyes closed and a content smile, who hugs you tight. Three kids and a wife. Rolled-up mattresses. Piles of clothes tied with string. A large white dude. Massive wooden frames an arm-span wide and several high. A whole bloody fridge.

In the monsoonal shower, the raincoats materialize—raincapes, really, that cover both motorcycle and rider. The rain slows nothing down: blue and green and orange and yellow and silver and pink flap by under darkened sky; the honking, insistent, continues to weave its way through the raindrops.

Saigon is plenty hot and sticky and noisy, yet somehow Cholon, its Chinatown, achieves a state still hotter and stickier and noisier. In the unforgiving morning sun, I sought refuge under the awning of a bakery on the corner of Trieu Quang Phuc and Tran Hung Dao with a chocolate-covered strawberry ice cream on a stick. A trickle of sweat made its way past the small of my back.

The city fades away inside each one of Cholon’s many dusty temples, with their cool, tiled pavilions of stillness and quiet. Sometimes, even the curling smoke from the hanging incense spirals seems suspended in the air. At the Tam Son Hoi Quan Pagoda, a low murmuring prayer chant. Sheltered in the doorway of the Ha Chuong Hoi Quan Pagoda on Duong Nguyen Trai, a biscuit seller across the street through the late-morning drizzle.