At 5 a.m. on that September 11, Hanoi was already bustling. The honking of horns and the chatter of people accompanied the excitement in our souls. We rushed into a Circle K, a convenience store common in Asia, to buy something to eat and drink for the journey, even though water was already pouring down from the sky. The rain had been steady for days, and neither Mirko nor I were prepared for what we would see in the hours to come.
Leaving the city of Hanoi was a frenzy. My heart was racing a thousand beats per minute, scared of handling the motorcycle in the heavy rain and worried that the Vietnamese police would stop me, since I was riding a bike with a displacement above what my Italian B license allowed. About a quarter of an hour after our departure, we found ourselves on a four-lane avenue filled with hundreds of scooters, swarming like bees, moving restlessly and aimlessly within the urban hive made up of buildings and bridges suspended in nothingness, cutting through the structure of the artificial hive where these industrious bees circulated to reach their work. To our eyes, the hustle and bustle of the scooters was an unstoppable symphonic spectacle. We felt part of the crowd and continued on our way, trying to avoid any kind of accident. It was then that we truly confronted that stereotype of terrible Asian driving, which had never felt so accurate: for anyone in Vietnam, mirrors are ornamental, merely tools to comply with regulations. The reality is that often locals, after purchasing a motorcycle, remove the mirrors for convenience.
Between one slalom and another, we finished that immense stretch of road and exited the city of Hanoi to enter the CT03, the road leading to the outskirts. It was there, for the first time, that we realized the destruction caused by Yagi and noticed the dark side of the disproportionate population growth that the city underwent in the 20th century: the outskirts, in fact, resemble a true shantytown. The smell of acid from the factories and the complete inefficiency of the manholes, which caused rainwater to stagnate, still lingered in our nostrils. On top of that, everything was made worse by the weather conditions that rendered the roads impassable. The thousands of scooters coming from the opposite direction, heading towards the hustle of the city that was now on the brink of waking up, adapted as best they could: some invaded the other lane, while others drove along the pseudo-roadway of mud at the roadside, finding a way to continue. Stunned and a bit frightened, Mirko and I moved straight ahead, adapting to that swarm of bikes. The urban landscape was interspersed with bridges waving the communist flag, alternated with the classic yellow star on a red background, symbol of Vietnam. Behind the vast stretches of asbestos, which served as roofs for those slums, glimpses of Vietnamese nature emerged: teak trees, with their height and vibrant green color, embraced that degradation like older brothers.
I remember my heart racing as we arrived at the first provincial checkpoint, the one separating the province of Hanoi from Hoa Binh. The structure was imposing and dated, surely dating back to the war period. My hands began to tremble, scared of a possible roadblock, and my sweating increased. I looked behind me and sighed with relief: behind me was a boy, at most sixteen, riding a scooter without a helmet, with a poncho hood covering his head. Behind him, two other boys of his age, if not younger, were perched on the same scooter. I thanked this wonderful country, shifted into fourth gear, and zoomed past the majestic structure.
We finished that stretch of road, which felt endless to us but was actually only 70 km, in almost three hours. We thought the worst was behind us and, at TT. KY Son, decided to stop for a short break. We were completely soaked. We realized that our Western K-Ways and our Dr. Martens had no means to withstand the natural disasters of Vietnam. There, we witnessed one of the most terrifying sights nature could show: the Black River, the major tributary of the Red River, had completely devastated its banks. Just a few kilometers away, a bridge had collapsed. We were stunned by the dark panorama laid before us: our senses were completely overwhelmed. Our eyes, wide open at such devastation, tried to capture every moment of that landscape: the color of the river, already dark by nature (as its name suggests) due to the surface coal deposits, was completely submerged by the enormous amount of water, appearing purplish, tending towards black, like a dripping bloodstain. The debris within it was of all kinds: clothes, toys, and sheets of metal from the homes of the displaced, mixed with iron pieces from the bridge, would eventually end up in its twin, the Red River, and finally in the Gulf of Tonkin. The miasmas rising from its waters were heavy and indefinable, a potpourri of odors invading our lungs. Our hands, numb from the cold and made rough by the water, had lost all sensation; our hearing and voices were drowned out by the noise from the river and the wind. We were completely at the mercy of that place and the anguish it stirred within us.
We climbed back onto our motorcycles, traumatized by the surrounding scenery, and set off again. We turned left to enter the CT02, a road that initially ran alongside the river before rising in altitude. From 19 meters above sea level in Hanoi, we would need to climb 915 meters, reaching Moc Chau. On that winding stretch of road with mountain views, we could glimpse some of Vietnam's natural wonders: to our right, we could only make out the trunks of the famous Vietnamese marble mountains, cut through by the thick low clouds surrounding the area. Like in the renowned painting “Wanderer above the Sea of Fog,” our spirits were filled with awe and wonder, almost indescribable. The power of that irrational and mighty stepmother, nature, troubled our hearts, and a sense of the sublime flooded our souls. We were entranced to the point of terror by the cobalt white of the marble, contrasted with the black of the clouds. The mottled color of the shantytown's tin roofs gave way to a palette of different hues derived from the spectacular flora of northern Vietnam: the bright, almost fiery red of the royal poinciana trees alternated with the yellow of jackfruit and the predominant green of teak and bamboo. The vast array of colors was sometimes interrupted by the green of the rice paddies and the small villages, shanties made of bamboo and bricks, where rice workers have lived for generations.
Mirko and I were shocked and exhausted but in love with the scenery. The emotions within us were contrasting, yet our hearts were filled with joy. For the first time in my life, I felt alive. I had no fear or apprehension, just a desire to continue down the road. The fatigue was purely mental; my body was hungry for life, and that experience was giving me plenty of it. The emotions from the days leading up to our departure—sadness, anxiety, and restlessness—had completely faded away. It was the first time I thought I wanted to transform those experiences into my life, without anyone telling me when I should live them. I felt free and alive; I finally felt like myself.
We stopped as soon as the rain and the scenery allowed for a brief respite. Traveling with a photographer means keeping pace with his rhythm dictated by the shots: never before that day had I been so grateful for my travel companion’s ability to capture moments. His keen eye spotted an apparently isolated clearing from which we could better see the mountains.
The landscape was majestic, and while Mirko tried to take some photos of me, I was lost in my thoughts, imagining the number of deadly traps and hidden corpses still in that jungle, now consumed by time and become relics of a cruel war. Suddenly, I spotted more metal sheets on the cliff. Intrigued by those rocky structures hanging over the mountain, we headed there, as usual, without even discussing it. We rushed there in the blink of an eye and realized it was a house, welcomed by human feces at the entrance. We entered with hesitation, but curiosity outweighed any embarrassment or shame. We immediately noticed some hammocks on the left side of the corridor, overlooking the rice fields: the sound of the drizzle pattered on the metal sheets that served as a ceiling. We wandered into the “living room,” which we recognized by the smoke from the fire, sheltered by a low wall, seeking some escape through the small holes in the asbestos. At its feet sat a woman in her seventies, squatting near the flames, adding strength to the fire with strong puffs. On the table, in addition to the classic Vietnamese chilum, there were some incredibly fresh hard-boiled eggs. The “bà,” initially frightened at the sight of two wet and trembling Westerners, offered us a beaming smile and, without saying a word, invited us to sit down, bringing over some eggs and pouring hot tea. Hungry and chilled, it was nearly nine in the morning, so we didn’t need to be asked twice, saying to each other, “They’re hard-boiled; what could they possibly do to us?” Behind her was a man of a similar age, likely a veteran of the terrible war that had devastated the country. You could see it in his gaze and read it in his eyes: they were rigid, fixed, and above all devoid of any empathy toward us. Unlike his presumably wife, who curiously and with onomatopoeic sounds asked us how our technological equipment worked, he remained stiff with his papers as he consumed his tobacco bong. He was reserved and rarely met our eyes. However, whenever our handmade ceramic cups were about to be empty, he would, with unusual kindness and promptness, refill them before promptly returning to his place. He offered no greeting or nod, but the attention with which he observed our drinking was filled with love, not so much for us, but for the guest itself. We finished our breakfast and expressed our gratitude. Mirko managed to take a few shots, not of the man, who was reluctant to communicate with us, but of all the other inhabitants of that curious home, who appeared like mushrooms in autumn after seeing four large round eyes in their living room. We stood up, thanked them with a bow, and left the shack even more in love with those places and those wonderful people. As I climbed back onto my motorcycle, I reflected on the moments spent in that place, and from my subconscious, memories of school and the Greek “xenia” (hospitality) resurfaced. The memory of the Phaeacians, who offered Odysseus a ship to return to his beloved Ithaca, fully aware that the wrath of Poseidon would be unleashed upon them, caressed my soul and made me reflect on the importance of such a value in life.
Those people had literally offered us everything they had, without us doing anything. In silence, they created an unbreakable bond between us and them. They showed us, for the first time, the warmth of gestures.
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