The skill of the motorbike drivers in country is unequaled anywhere else I’ve been in the world. More research is needed, of course, but for now it’s worth noting that as Gina and I were cycling down a long road in Ninh Binh—rice fields to the left, shrines that make up the cemeteries here to the right, mountains in the distance—we passed a man on a motorbike coming from the other direction who was holding a blind man’s cane. His eyes were closed. He was basically the Vietnamese version of the blind assassin in John Wick 4, and it’s pretty clear that he is not to be fucked with. It’s no wonder the Americans lost the war in Vietnam.

You would be forgiven for calling bullshit on this story, but you would be dead wrong to do so. Nobody could make this stuff up.