VIETNAM

From January 19th to February 27th, 2003

Hue - Vinh - Hanoi - Halong Bay - Yen Bai - Sappa Valley

In Vietnam, "3 bikes on the tales road" - which had become "2 bikes on the tales road" after Erwan's departure in New Delhi - became "4 bikes on the tales road of Vietnam". In the city of Hue, two very good friends from Switzerland, Yves and Serge, joined us for over 4 weeks of traveling together. It was great to have fresh blood in the team, and even more so after 1 year on the road. It gave just the right amount energy to keep on pedaling and working happily for the remaining of the trip. And it came right at the good time too. We had never encountered as many bureaucratic and government barriers as in Vietnam. It was very hard to work here. Everywhere we would go and ask for help, people would say that they couldn't help us without an official letter from the government stating that we were allowed to do this kind of collection. Yet we had only a tourist visa and we had to go by. So we went our way, like big kids. We met an English teacher in Hue and we asked if she could help us. One of her friend was a kindergarten teacher and he agreed to tell us one of the stories he used with his kids. We discovered that the Vietnamese Government along with the help of the Association of Vietnamese Folklorists did an important effort of conservation of its oral tradition. Many stories are compiled in massive volumes of Vietnamese tales and legends. And lighter volumes are available for the teachers to use with small classes. It was in such a book that our young teacher had learned the story that we recorded from him. After hitting several walls with all the local cultural associations of Hue we had nothing else to do but to take our bicycles up north towards Hanoi. And so we did.

The ride to Hanoi was tough, constant front wind, covered sky, cold temperatures, and frequent drizzle. To make things even better, the driving style of Vietnamese people is very close from the Indian style, in one word: dangerous. They prefer honking than slowing down. It was not quite as bad as India because we could take advantage of the large lanes and squeeze on the side, but we could have done without the ever-present sound of the horns. But one thing is certain: we had never seen so many road accidents! At least once per day a motorcyclist would fall, or hit another one, etc. I have two anecdotes related to road accidents: the first anecdote includes us. Yes! We had our FIRST accident of the trip! A young Viet on his motorcycle wanted to impress the 2 girls that he was carrying at the back (there are up to 5 persons on one motorcycle in Vietnam) and he decided to play a joke on us: to come really close to us and to turn at the last minute. Unfortunately for him and for us he missed and fell, taking Ian, Serge, and I down with him. God! We were so mad that we started running at him to teach him a serious lesson. He ran away quite quickly and from a distance he could do nothing but look at us kicking his motorbike on the floor. We got lucky, nobody got injured and we suffered no serious damage (only a few broken spokes).

The second anecdote is a bit worse, but luckily we were only spectators. We witnessed a bad accident on the highway near Hanoi. Two 3-wheelers carrying people collided, one rolled on its side and one man hit the ground headfirst. We helped him as much as we could but he really needed to go to the hospital! Blood was all over and his head was seriously touched. So we tried to stop a car or ask people to call an ambulance (cell phones are very common around Hanoi), but nobody stopped. It was more than obvious that a serious accident had just happened and yet nobody did anything about it. We were dumbfounded! We hope the guy made it to the hospital…

One other detail is important to write here: we have reached the Pacific Ocean. We have made it: from one ocean to the other! Almost 12 months ago, we were turning are back to the other pond on the western coast of France. We were quite happy to see the ocean again. We feel the end of the trip approaching.