Small in stature, always carrying a backpack on his back, Nguyen Van Khiem (22 years old) raised his black arms and smiled: `Before, I was very white, from the day I traveled across Vietnam until now, I am as black as coal.
As a final-year student at the University of Mining and Geology, Nguyen Van Khiem has `pocketed` thousands of kilometers of `bicycle trips`.
With only a scooter, Khiem has conquered roads that are considered extremely difficult by backpackers.
At the end of 2011, while visiting Hoa Binh, Khiem was invited by ethnic people to live like family: eating on the same tray, sleeping in the same place, making fish cages, and playing with children.
Khiem began participating in clubs inside and outside of school, volunteering to go to many places with the aim of letting his eyes and heart better perceive the life around him.
Returning after each trip, Khiem’s luggage is not just a story.
`If you don’t overcome your own fear, you will not be able to discover interesting things in life,` Khiem said.
Recalling the 35-day journey across Vietnam with 80 friends in the Green Summer club a year ago, Khiem Bao was opposed by his family because `what do small people do, stay at home and study`.
Khiem’s trip across Indochina was made in 45 days.
Thinking that his parents pointed out the difficulty to test his will to see if he could overcome that obstacle, Khiem worked part-time to save money, planned a safe trip, and pledged to his family that he would be okay.
`The feeling of cycling diligently for 10 km and reaching the top of Hai Van Pass is very strange,` Khiem said.
Before trips, Khiem always prepares his physical strength and skills to respond to emergency situations.
Recounting his journey across Indochina by bicycle, Khiem assured that the total cost of the trip was only 3 million.
`There are many roads that are off track, unlike when I initially researched them.`
Wherever he goes, Khiem always carries a dictionary to look up or `point to` to communicate.
When he shared about his dream of traveling around the world by bicycle, his younger sister suddenly exclaimed: `Are you going away for Tet? Will you come back when I marry you?`.
Accumulating many life skills and gaining more experience, Khiem plans to go around the world because `no Vietnamese has ever conquered five continents by bicycle`.
The young man said he had planned for the smallest difficulties such as how to convert electrical appliances, or how to inform friends when electricity and Internet are not available.
The journey of cycling to conquer the Northwest road in 12 days from the beginning of this year helped Khiem practice physical fitness and check what he was missing for the trip around the world.
`Backpackers once judged that conquering the peaks of O Quy Ho and Ma Pi Leng by scooter was impossible, but I did it,` Khiem was proud and his face became radiant when thinking about this July.
