In a new Dabbler travel mini-series, writer and seasoned globetrotter Valerie McTavish offers Snapshots from her current travels in Cambodia and Vietnam. Her final stop: The largest city in Vietnam. If Beijing is “the City of Bicycles,” then Ho Chi Minh City is “the Capital of Motorbikes.”

Stepping off the sidewalk in Saigon could easily be considered suicidal. I’m standing in the Ben Thanh Market area studying my map to plot a route that requires the least number of street crossings. When I look up, a wall of styrofoam chunks is an inch from my nose – the courier with this impossible balance of junk on his bicycle has decided to use the sidewalk to skirt a jam on the road.

Since standing on the sidewalk with your head down in Saigon could easily be considered suicidal, I may as well cross the street. There are an estimated 10 million scooters dancing with each other in the corridors of Ho Chi Minh City and they provide their own musical accompaniment – beep, beep, honk, honk. They all seem to swing and jive with few incidents even when pedestrians, hawkers pushing carts, buses, cyclists, and SUVs join the jig.

At this moment, I am steeling myself to cross 8 loosely defined lanes of traffic as I make my way to what I believe is the street that will deliver me back to my hotel. I look for a local headed in the same direction; they make for excellent shields and there’s strength in numbers. No such luck – I’m on my own.

I approach the road and put on my poker face. You have to look like you mean business – one glimpse of uncertainty and they’ll run you back to the curb. Look left, look right, look left and behind, now step off. Walk at a steady pace, do not break your gate – scooters at 10 marks off are already adjusting their course. As vehicles approach, make eye contact – stare them down. Keep going, don’t stop and trust they will go around you. Crap, that motorcycle appears to be driven by a 3-year old, how can I eye him down. Keep going, almost there. Red alert! Man on a cell phone – I run and leap to safety with inches to spare, his sweaty breeze grazing my back.

It doesn’t take long to learn the ballet and, truth be told, it’s one of the most entertaining things to do in this massive city. But, if you are going to go out and play in traffic, be sure to do like the locals and pick up a smog mask at the market. Wandering these streets and breathing the exhaust of millions, really is suicidal.