The Night Train to Hanoi and the Scooter Chase That Almost Killed Us

Let me set the scene: Ho Chi Minh City, 2 AM, and I'm on the back of a motorbike, holding on for dear life as we weave through traffic that makes New York look like a parking lot. My friend Joey—yes, that Joey—is driving, and we're being chased by three guys on scooters because Joey accidentally cut someone off and then, being Joey, flipped them off.

This all started because we wanted phở. Not the tourist phở, the real stuff. The kind you get from a street vendor at midnight, sitting on plastic stools, with motorbikes whizzing past your elbow. We'd been in Vietnam for two weeks, and Joey had become obsessed with finding 'the perfect bowl.'

So there we were, at this tiny stall in District 1, eating the most incredible phở I've ever had. The broth was rich, the noodles were perfect, and the beef was so tender it melted. We're sitting there, talking about how this is the best meal of the trip, when Joey decides we need to find another place for comparison.

That's when it happened. Joey, being Joey, pulled out in front of three guys on scooters. Not a big deal, right? Wrong. In Vietnam, cutting someone off is basically declaring war. These guys started yelling, Joey yelled back, and then—because he's Joey—he gave them the finger.

Next thing I know, we're being chased. Three scooters, weaving through traffic, and Joey is somehow both terrified and having the time of his life. We're going 60 kilometers an hour through streets that are maybe wide enough for one car, and I'm holding onto Joey's waist, screaming things I can't repeat here.

We lost them eventually—Joey took a sharp turn down an alley, and we hid behind a stack of boxes for ten minutes. When we finally came out, we were both shaking, but also laughing. Because of course we were. We'd just survived a scooter chase in Ho Chi Minh City. How do you not laugh at that?

The next day, we took the night train to Hanoi. It's a 36-hour journey, and the train is basically a moving hostel. We shared a compartment with a Vietnamese family who didn't speak English but kept feeding us food and laughing at our attempts to communicate. The train rattled through the night, and I lay there thinking about how travel is just a series of near-death experiences punctuated by incredible food.

Hanoi was different. Quieter, more contemplative. We spent our days exploring the Old Quarter, eating bún chả (grilled pork with noodles—Obama's favorite, the locals kept telling us), and drinking egg coffee at cafes that felt like they'd been there for a hundred years.

But the scooter chase? That's the story we tell. Not the beautiful temples, not the incredible food, not even the night train. The scooter chase. Because that's what travel really is—it's the moments where everything goes wrong, and you're terrified, and then you're laughing, and you realize you're alive and you're in Vietnam and this is your life now.

Joey and I still talk about it. We have a group chat called 'The Scooter Chase Survivors,' and every year on the anniversary, we send each other phở recipes. Because that's what friends do—they almost get you killed, and then they make it into a story you tell for the rest of your life.