How do young Vietnamese travel?

This is my 100th blog and the message I would like to share is "When we are young, let's have our own dreams and make them come true". This blog is about the young Vietnamese in the "traitimvietnamonline" travel forum (traitim means "heart") who have traveled throughout Vietnam by motorbike and were back home with their wonderful photos. They may be students or anyone, who have a passion for travel the same as we do, and they have been to remote destinations that I've not known. The forum is written in Vietnamese. I am not a member of that forum and only read the posts sometimes to see if someone may organize a trip by car to Hà Giang and Cao Bằng provinces where I would like to go to.

The photos in this blog are not mine, so please don't vote for me. The author of all these great photos is the Vietnamese boy in photo No. 12. He is a member of the said forum and after seeing his photos, I contacted him and have got his permission for uploading these photos into my blog. His nickname in the TTVNOL forum is "Windysmile" and you can see his signature "Windy" at the bottom right corner of every photo. To respect the copyright, I also added his name to every photo. Windysmile has made several trips to Hà Giang province (the northernmost province of Vietnam, home of 22 ethnic minority groups) by motorbike and we can feel his affection for the people and the place in the photos. First I was thinking about using 4 of his photos then making a link to his website, but he replied to me he had neither blog nor website of his own.

In early September I saw a thread of that forum where some young people organized a 5-day trip to Hà Giang province by motorbike. I wanted to go, but felt I would not feel comfortable sitting on a bike for 1,000km two ways, so I decided to wait for another chance. Their budget was not much, approx US$60 (VND 1 million) for the trip. In another thread I read last week, a member was seeking more companions to travel by motorbike to Hà Giang province for donating blankets and second hand clothes to the ethnic minority people, as the cold winter is coming. Not just adventure for fun, they also think about the people. The good side of traveling by motorbike is that they could reach the remote villages where the cars couldn't. Certainly their motorbikes are also damaged after such a long way and going on bumpy roads. They also need to support each other on the way, for example, one had his motorbike stopped engine after climbing up a slope, someone had to go and buy oil for him.

Almost every weekend there is a group going on a motorbike trip to northern Vietnam. Much good advice from the veterans of these trips has been shared in the forum. One of the touching stories I read is that in order to reach a village in a north west mountain they had to go by motorbike from 8:30am to 9pm. At one section, the road was blocked by a landslide. They found another way to go, but it was very narrow and steep, they had to push the bikes. Fortunately, an ethnic minority man came and he helped them. He even invited the boys and girls to stay overnight at his house. It was good luck for them, because if they didn't meet him they may have lost the way and have had to stay overnight in the forest. As he said, the road was so dangerous that if he stepped with his left foot it would be on the mountain edge. The prize in return was that next day they saw the happiness in the eyes of the children at the village they wanted to reach, when the kids received candies from them.

There are difficult routes for going by motorbike due to unavailability of asphalt roads. Windysmile said to me that when going up the mountains, if I travel by car/bus, then the fun would reduce 70%. I agreed with him on this. Sometimes we passed by a beautiful landscape but couldn't get out of the car/bus for nice shots. I must admit that I don’t have good experiences in traveling by motorbike. Every day I go by motorbike in Hanoi and feel tired of struggling with crazy traffic here. The longest distance I traveled by motorbike was only 60km and I didn't drive. When I was sitting behind a Cambodian driver in Siem Reap or an Indonesian driver in Bali, I always reminded them to slow down as they drove too fast. I told them I would not want to be there if an accident should happen.

After seeing Windysmile's photos, my dream is a good camera and it will be in my future plan. I love photography as much as traveling, but right now I need to save money for the next trip to Sri Lanka. My major problem is that I travel solo on most of my trips and the people, who often help me take photos, are local tuk tuk and motorbike drivers and they only understand a simple instruction "push this button". A heavy camera would be inconvenient for me as I also have to carry my bag while walking on high heels and keeping my traditional dress clean.

The last thing I feel from his photos is that there are so many great places for photography even right at home and one can easily spend their lifetime seeking the incredible shots, especially if we can capture the moments of happiness, smiles and sadness of the people we meet.

This is my message of thanks to Windysmile as he is going to read this entry too.

"Cảm ơn bạn Windysmile đã cho phép mình upload ảnh của bạn lên blog này. Hy vọng sẽ tiếp tục được nhìn thấy những bức ảnh tuyệt đẹp của bạn. Biết đâu chúng ta sẽ gặp nhau trên một vùng đất nào đó của Tổ Quốc, cho dù bạn thích đi bằng xe máy còn mình thì lại thích ô tô. Mình cũng xin chúc bạn luôn có nhiều niềm vui trong cuộc sống. Chào bạn nhé!"

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