Ten things we’ll never understand about Vietnam

January 29, 2026 — 5:00am

Vietnam is one of our favourite travel destinations, with Australian visitor numbers surging, but there are still many things that might puzzle you about this endearing nation.

The street food

What you’ll quickly understand is that Vietnamese street food is fabulous. What you’ll never understand is how this can be. How does such fresh, flavoursome and extraordinarily diverse food get produced from the smallest, most primitive kitchens, in sweltering heat, and by cooks so unassuming? How do they know how to balance flavours and textures so magnificently? How are baguettes better than anywhere else outside France? Who knows, but praise be.

The traffic skills

A gazillion motorbikes, ever-increasing cars, street vendors with carts, and intersections with no traffic lights might suggest complete chaos, and yet the traffic flows onwards. It’s a brilliant showcase of zigzagging, dodging and split-second decisions we’ll never grasp. Another thing we really don’t get is how to cross the road in the face of this buzzing busyness. The secret: slow and steady, and never stop. Unless you’re out-chickened by a bus, of course.

The tiny chairs

Vietnam’s brilliant street cuisine is served on the world’s smallest tables, and as a patron you’re obliged to hunch on a Lilliputian red plastic chair that sags under your weight and forces your knees up around your ears. You’ll feel like you’re playing make-believe restaurant in a kindergarten. And it isn’t just because you’re foreign-sized: the Vietnamese are much taller than they used to be, yet their restaurant chairs remain diminutive. What’s that about?

The motorbike overload

I’ve lost count of the amazing things I’ve seen transported on motorbikes in Vietnam: eight highly flammable gas cylinders, two live pigs, a wardrobe, enough groceries to stock a corner store, a family of five. How all the goods are placed on board and don’t fall off is remarkable, and how the rider balances the ensemble is a showcase of circus-performer abilities. I expect some dreary laws will forbid all this someday, but I hope not too soon.

The vehicular honking

The Vietnamese take leaning on the horn to insanity-inducing levels. They use the horn constantly, as a bat uses sonar. Drivers beep to indicate danger, frustration, impatience and warning – or just because they can. They honk a millisecond after a green light appears if the car in front hasn’t moved. They honk if they want to pass, even if passing is impossible. Expect a cacophonous journey, and a sleepless night in the wrong road-facing hotel room.

The welcome to foreigners

You don’t need to delve far into Vietnamese history to discover how put-upon this nation has been by foreign armies from Chinese and French to American. Yet you aren’t long in Vietnam before you notice how friendly locals are to everyone. Maybe it’s because they’re focused on the future. Maybe it’s because half the population was born after the Vietnam War. These days, you’ll find less anti-Americanism here than almost anywhere else. Go figure.

The tangled wires

A concerted two-decades-long effort in Ho Chi Minh City has seen many electrical cables disappear underground, but city outskirts and small towns across Vietnam still display a spectacular spaghetti madness of overhead electricity, telephone, internet and cable-TV wires. They hang off poles like deranged jackdaw’s nests, and conceal entire building facades. How does anyone know where the wires go, who owns them, or how to fix a fault? Look up, and be constantly amazed.

All those zeros

An Aussie dollar gets you 17,447 dong, which means you have to be a mathematical genius to work out prices. A method slightly easier than dividing by 17,447 is to know that VND100,000 is almost $6. But when you’re presented with a hotel bill that runs into the millions, your brain will freeze. Do your maths before attempting an ATM withdrawal. Why doesn’t the State Bank of Vietnam knock several zeros off the currency?

All the Nguyens

How the Vietnamese identify each other is a mystery, because an estimated 40 per cent of the population share the surname Nguyen. Tran and Le are distant seconds and thirds at around 10 per cent each. That’s a lot of Nguyens greeting Nguyens in business meetings, and you wouldn’t want to use the surname for restaurant reservations. Incidentally, Nguyen was also among the most common newborns’ surnames in Sydney and Melbourne 20 years ago, but has since fallen in the ranks.

Touching someone’s head

The internet is full of spurious advice about supposedly strange Asian social customs, and in Vietnam you’re urged not to touch anyone’s head. Well, duh. Is there anyone in the whole wide world who’d be happy to be touched on the head by a random stranger? Or pointed at with a foot? These aren’t arcane cultural rules, they’re common courtesy. What I don’t understand is why the internet unthinkingly circulates such endless nonsense.