The awakening was traumatic, and the first thing we did was to look for the motorcycles. We quickly found Stephan, a French guy who moved to Vietnam several years ago. He was very welcoming, and we immediately trusted him, perhaps a bit influenced by those big, round eyes that reminded us of home. We decided to rent two Honda XR 150s, essential vehicles for traveling the more than 2000 km that awaited us on the road from Hanoi to Ho Chi Minh. We arranged to pick them up that evening so that we could start our journey at sunrise the next day. Stephan gave us great advice, stemming from his knowledge of the area, and helped us plan our road trip, especially considering Typhoon Yagi, which was wreaking havoc in Southeast Asia during that monsoon season.
In the early afternoon, we headed to a local Chúa, a very touristy one, where we took a few photos and asked Buddha for a blessing for our journey. Fortunately, we didn’t need it, as the spirituality of that country was already watching over us. The Chúa was lavish and rich, but our photos mainly focused on the people; not just the photographic shots, but also, and especially, those we took with our eyes—what Mirko likes to call “mental clicks.” Next to the Chúa, we met a woman washing clothes in the river, with the care and dedication of a mother and the classic bamboo hat that Vietnamese women wear to protect themselves from the sun. We were captivated by the simplicity with which these people live and perform their tasks: their homes, often small shacks surrounded by opulent Western buildings, remained untouched by the now incessant tourist influences; thus, household chores like laundry, which we Westerners can no longer do without a washing machine, are for them a normality carried out along the riverbanks. Nature can assist us in performing such tasks without monetary expense.
Sure! Here’s the translation:
While we were eating some pineapple bought from the stall outside the pagoda, we decided to head to our meeting with the children. After saying goodbye to the lady who sold us the fruit, who gifted us a wonderful toothless smile, half of her face covered by the iconic nón lá and two strands of hair framing her face, we made our way to the park.
Tired, hungry, and a bit anxious about the journey awaiting us the next day, we approached the meeting spot with Thien and the others. We were half an hour late, and when we arrived at the park, it seemed there was no one there... then, from behind a statue in the middle of the green field, we spotted Thien’s face. He was excited to see us and this time had some friends with him, including Louis, a French boy who had moved to Malaysia to study. Along with them were a child and an elderly man, who played football like a twenty-year-old. The match was fiercely contested, but Thien, the old man, and I brought home the victory. We had a blast, and our laughter could be heard from kilometers away; in fact, just like the previous afternoon, we found ourselves surrounded by unpaid spectators who, undeterred by the rain and curious about our mixed group, had happened to be there and decided to stay. I wondered for a long time what made those people watch us in such amazement as we played football in the incessant rain of early September: it wasn’t until a few days later, on the way back from Moc Chau, that I realized they were drawn by the spontaneity of our actions and the onomatopoeic language we used. We didn’t speak Vietnamese (nor did Louis), and they stumbled over a few English words, but our eyes and souls communicated with each other in a symphony of thoughts and emotions.
As darkness fell, we bid farewell to the kids with a warm hug. They warned us to be careful on the motorbikes, as our first stop (Moc Chau, of course) was currently in the eye of the storm. Quite unconcerned about the danger and likely still unaware of our motorcycling skills, we exchanged goodbyes and set off, filled with emotions.
We arrived at Stephan's place and picked up the bikes. After a hearty dinner at the restaurant that had warmly welcomed us that very morning, as promised to our drunk friends, we decided to go to bed, setting our first alarm of our new lives (though we didn’t know it yet) for 4:30 AM.
At 4:30 sharp on that September 11, as my phone began to recount the tragedy of the Twin Towers twenty-three years ago, the alarm went off. The adrenaline kept me awake through the night; Mirko also couldn’t sleep, his agitation evident in his few words. I pretended not to notice the emotion on his face and reassured myself in turn. Nothing could go wrong.
The sounds of the city and its lights were about to come alive, the remnants of the typhoon were still present, and the rain showed no sign of stopping, but neither would we ever accept defeat.
We freed the bikes from their steel chains, strapped the backpacks to the racks, hand on the clutch, first gear down, and off we went towards Moc Chau.
Did you really read everything? Take a look at the PHOTOS
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