I got an Air Mekong flight to Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) and then a taxi to the backpackers’ area in District One. An old woman led me down an alley to her hotel off Pham Ngu Lao, and then I hit the streets.

It was a strange feeling. Normally I’m quite happy on my own, but after two weeks of company on Phu Quoc island, loneliness crept in liked a wounded badger.

All I could think about was heading back to Sihanoukville. I missed the cooking and wanted to get back in the kitchen, but I still had two weeks left on my visa and was determined to see some of Vietnam. And in truth, I had no idea where I would be heading next.

My mood wasn’t helped by the appalling congestion. Ho Chi Minh City is an idiotic maelstrom of chaos just like every other Asian city that views pedestrians as the bottom of the food chain. Traffic priority is based solely on the size of your vehicle, and you need 360-degree vision just to cross the road.

There are no enforced street laws – mopeds ride on the pavement, the wrong way down one-way streets, in fact the wrong way down every street. The Vietnamese clearly hate walking just as much as the Cambodians and Thais, and mopeds are seen as a status symbol. Everyone who walks wants a moped, and everyone who has a moped wants a car, and you’re left with the sad realisation that the world will never be free of its addiction to gasoline – not when it’s only a dollar a litre anyway.

It makes you appreciate capitals like London, which have embraced pedestrians and cyclists. In Ho Chi Minh City, all you see is row after row of moped drivers, their faces covered in masks. It’s like a million bank robbers have taken over the city.