When I was in Saigon in 1972, I remembered the herds of motor bikes with the tooting of horns and noise. But even this did not prepare me for the Old Quarter of Hanoi. The streets in the Old Quarter are much narrower than in Ho Chi Minh City, yet the numbers of motor bikes are at least the same, with taxis and cyclos and now SUVs thrown into the chaos. And since everyone parks their motor bikes on the sidewalk, you have to walk in the street. Pedestrians are definitely on the bottom of the transportation food chain.
The sidewalks are also uneven and the gutters are constantly flowing with garbage and grey water (to use a nicer term for it).
Nevertheless, the overall impression is lively and evocative, if not overwhelming. Which brings up a good point -- you have to be somewhat prepared to accept a different standard than what one may be used to at home. There an excellent writing about how to approach the different Vietnamese culture on the Our Man In Hanoi blog that I can't get to right now because blogspot blogs are blocked in China and Vietnam most of the time. I will try to post it or link to it later.
