On the Ground in Bangkok and Hanoi
Urbanist impressions of Southeast Asia
Outside of going to Mexico, it had been a while since I traveled outside the United States. The pandemic made it difficult to escape the San Francisco (and American) bubble I had experienced over the past 3 years. So I was pretty excited to get the opportunity to visit Bangkok, Thailand, and Hanoi, Vietnam at the beginning of this year.
Like most people, I like traveling to gorge on delicious street food, enjoy some tropical weather, and take way too many pictures. But the nerdier side of me appreciates traveling to new places in order to get a better understanding of how urban environments differ around the world. I love analyzing how big cities tick, and my involvement in SF YIMBY has made me more interested in learning what American cities are lacking.
So besides posting a million stories on my Instagram, I wanted to reflect on what I enjoyed about Bangkok and Hanoi from an urbanist perspective. As a disclaimer though, a few days as a tourist in each city really isn’t enough time to know everything about them, from the good parts to the bad. Still, I came back from my travels with some great first impressions.
For starters, transportation and walkability stood out. Most places outside of North America make it easy to take transit or travel by foot, and Bangkok and Hanoi were no exception. Besides getting to and from the airport, it was rare for me to need to use a car. I spent most of my time traveling by using the government-operated metro system and the privately-owned elevated train system in Bangkok. While I would still rank NYC’s subway system better, Bangkok’s trains beat out every other American city. I remember missing my train and having another one arrive less than 5 minutes after, a rare experience in most US cities. Bangkok’s transit definitely blows San Francisco’s MUNI and BART out of the water.
Speaking of water, rivers in Bangkok were another great conduit for travel. For less than 50 cents, I could skip traffic by traveling by ferry, hopping from one ridiculously large shopping mall to another (besides being ferry stops, air-conditioned malls were a great way to avoid the heat). But even walking in the sun wasn’t too bad. Bangkok is dense enough that destinations were never too far to walk to and walking granted more opportunities to run into people selling mango sticky rice and moo ping.
In Hanoi, walking was the only way for me to get around. While I explored a wider area in Bangkok, in Hanoi I mostly stayed in the Old Quarter. There is no metro system there, but that wasn’t a problem because the Old Quarter is super dense, with most places being no more than a fifteen to twenty-minute walk. While I traveled by foot, the main way locals get around is by moped. I’ve shared my love of mopeds in the past, but my experience in Hanoi made me reevaluate my love. These things are loud and everywhere. Crossing a street means weaving through a sea of mopeds (on streets where stoplights are optional). I was told you would be fine walking across with your eyes closed (but I wouldn’t recommend it).
Dodging mopeds still felt a lot safer than sidestepping the metal death boxes that are automobiles. Still, I’ll admit I found the constant engine roar of hundreds of mopeds to be annoying. I definitely wouldn’t mind if people switched to the all-electric kind. But I did experience a quieter Hanoi when ambling through the weekend market when roads are shut down to traffic.
Even with that though, Hanoi is not peaceful, it’s loud and chaotic. And I absolutely loved it. Hanoi is a California NIMBY’s nightmare: sidewalks are blocked by restaurant patrons and parked mopeds, there is a constant din of conversation as people converse over coffee, and the warm night air is pierced by drunken karaoke. Even with bars closing early at 1 am, I felt much more excitement and energy in Hanoi than I do in San Francisco, where it feels like retirees dictate the social life in the city.
While not as dense, Bangkok still has a similar energy. Part of that I attribute to the much looser zoning found there versus California. Residential neighborhoods aren’t strictly residential, and you can find a variety of businesses like sake bars, bougie Korean BBQ spots, and more when taking a stroll. Meanwhile, in the United States, neighborhoods are strictly for sleep, work, or play. Outside of San Francisco’s older neighborhoods where businesses were established before strict zoning, it can be rare to find fun spots to eat and drink in residential neighborhoods which can make them sleepy and boring.
It probably helps that restaurants, bars, and cafes can seem to pop up in any space without restrictions. In Bangkok, I had beers at a tiny bar the size of a garage. Still, the space felt cozy and welcoming, so welcoming in fact that the bar owner wanted to take a photo with all his patrons. In Hanoi, balcony cafes filled with lush green plants pepper the city, and banh mi and bun cha joints fill every nook and cranny. I can’t imagine the amount of red tape business owners would need to wade through for a similar experience in San Francisco.
While it’s hard to know for sure as a tourist, housing in Hanoi and Bangkok seemed to be relatively affordable for people who live there. Part of that is due to the fact that children usually live in multigenerational households passed down from family members. But it was shocking for me to learn that a Bangkok hotel worker could afford to live within 5 minutes of walking from their job. While not the highest paying profession, they could still afford a studio close to their workplace. Meanwhile in San Francisco, you have techies with six-figure salaries rooming together in one-hundred-year-old apartments. Many people in other professions are forced to live hours away from the city, chained to their automobiles.
My trip was brief and there was only so much I could learn wearing the rose-tinted glasses of a tourist. Being back in San Francisco, I’m reminded of a lot of the conveniences that I appreciate living in the city. Still, it’s nice to get out of the Bay Area bubble and remember that dense, lively cities where citizens aren’t forced to drive isn’t an unusual sight.
Great to read👏🏼
Thank you for your observations. I intend to go to Hanoi next winter and I appreciate your insight. Every time I leave the United States I wonder at our car centric culture.