Racing Back to Vietnam

by John Pendergrass

  For me, the greatest challenge of all is reassembling my bike. Some people are mechanically inclined, natural-born fine-tuners who are in love with their bicycle. I am not one of them. Like most machines, a bicycle is easier to take apart than it is to put back together. By the end of the struggle, my back hurts, my neck is sore, and my arms ache as I struggle to solve the assembly puzzle in the corner of a poorly lit hotel room.

  Like any jet-lagged senior citizen, I’m wide awake at 5:00 am with plenty of time to put my bike into working condition. By mid-morning, I’m out on the streets of Da Nang, making sure my bicycle is free of problems. Is the seat height comfortable? Are the wheels true? Does it shift and brake properly? The middle of a race is no time to find out your bike’s got an issue.

  This city has changed in forty-five years. None of the rundown bars or shops remain; everything looks like it was built yesterday. In the old days, jeeps and military vehicles shared the roads with Vietnamese riding old bicycles or the occasional motorbike. This has all changed in the last half-century, Vietnam has become the land of motorbikes.

  It’s unbelievable. I’ve never seen so many motorbikes in my life. All of the streets are packed, there’s a mad cacophony of sputtering engines. Herds of motorbikes speed about in all directions, carrying anywhere from one to four people and loaded with cargo of every size and shape. Some have large baskets of produce, others carry cages of live animals; most anything that you would normally carry in a truck is transported on a motorbike.

  The citizens of Vietnam adore their motorbikes. The population of the country will soon reach one hundred million, and the number of motorbikes is close to fifty million—one motorbike for every two men, women, and children. The market is dominated by Honda, which is primarily manufactured in Vietnam; more than two-thirds of the public drives the brand. Yamaha and the Italian manufacturer Piaggio have a smaller share.

  Da Nang has just a few traffic signs or signals and these seem to be generally ignored. Only tourists stop at a stop sign. Instead, the traffic flows with a certain harmony. Riders weave in and out, dodging and turning, merging seamlessly at intersections. The river of motorbikes seems to flow effortlessly down the streets. The riders are stone-faced—no one shows anger or irritation. Unlike in China or India, where motorists act as if they’re getting paid by the honk, the horn is used judiciously and never with malice. The Vietnamese appear to have mastered the art of driving an overloaded bike in dense traffic while talking or texting on a cell phone.

  I experienced this passion for motorbikes firsthand. As I traveled around the country, I carried multiple photocopies of some old photographs from my year at Da Nang. Some showed me working at the dispensary, some pictured me in flight gear in front of an F-4 Phantom, and a few of the pictures featured motorbikes in the background. Whenever I would show these pictures to anyone who showed the least interest in my story—guides, hotel clerks, taxi drivers, or merchants—their faces would really light up when they saw those old motorbikes. “That’s a Honda ‘67,” they’d say with glee, happy to spot what is apparently a classic motorbike. The Vietnamese reacted much like an American car lover would react if he saw a picture of a ’57 Chevrolet. Many of them would ask me for a copy of the pictures. They may have been interested in my experience in Vietnam, but I think they were most impressed by the motorbikes.

  With such a large number of bikes and poor safety standards, accidents are very common in Vietnam. More than twenty-five people are killed each day on a motorbike. In such a dangerous world, the government of Vietnam makes a small nod in the direction of safety. Riders are required to wear helmets, a rule generally observed at best only by the driver of the motorbike. It was very common to see one or two passengers on the back of a bike, as well as a small child standing in front of the driver on the floorboard. These extra passengers rarely wore a helmet. They were unfazed by the fact that they were breaking all known rules of traffic and common sense.

  But then, the helmets used in Vietnam seem designed more for decoration than for protection. I saw a few of them for sale in shops. They’re basically a thin plastic sheet, probably around a quarter inch in thickness, with very little padding, selling for around $15–20. The models worn by women have a cut-out area in the back for a ponytail. The best that can be said about the helmets is that they come in a variety of attractive colors and that they are a little better than nothing.

  Women on motorbikes provide an interesting insight on Vietnamese culture. Females are just as common on bikes as are men; you see them rolling down the road in one hundred degree weather, wearing long sleeve clothes, a face mask, sunglasses, a hat and gloves—every inch of their flesh covered to protect themselves from the sun. Some even wear hoodies and long cloth garments that extend from the head down over the neck. When it comes to clothing for women on a motorbike, it seems, the more the better.

  This emphasis on clothing helps protect Vietnamese women from the harmful effects of radiation, as well as reducing the respiratory effects of air pollution. But this is just part of the story; Vietnamese women aren’t motivated by the fear of skin cancer or the dangers of breathing dirty air. Their biggest concern is the fear of dark skin. In Vietnam and in many Asian countries, white skin equals beauty. This love of pale flesh may date back to the days when manual labor in rice paddies resulted in dark skin. The higher classes, who worked with their minds instead of their bodies, stayed out of the sun and were admired and respected for their white skin.

  This quest for white skin shows up in many different ways in Vietnam. During my trip to Southeast Asia, the sun was brutal, with the temperature usually reaching the high 90s. I ran out of sunscreen mid-way in my travels and went shopping for a replacement. What I discovered is that the concept of a sun block with a specific SPF number doesn’t seem to have reached this country. I searched several stores before finding something that worked. By contrast, skin whitening creams were everywhere, I saw dozens of different brands designed to promote fair skin. It’s a little ironic; while many in the affluent west seek out the sun, roasting themselves in the name of beauty, the women of Asia avoid it at all costs.

  It’s an interesting glimpse into Vietnamese culture that’s of little concern to me. My opportunity for pale, beautiful skin ended decades ago, if it ever existed.

  I eased my bicycle out into the traffic flow, dressed in my cycling gear with its fancy pants, shiny shoes, and a colorful jersey. The motorbikes that streamed past took little notice of me and my bike. Every now and then I would overtake someone, but no one would glance my way, no one would acknowledge my presence. I was just another part of the traffic circulation, another piece of the puzzle. I yelled “xin chao” (hello) to a few of the motorbikes, forcing them to look my way, occasionally generating a wry smile.

  I headed down the beach road and swung left into a traffic circle with at least a hundred motorbikes, continuing on toward the airport. As I cruised along a modern four lane boulevard. I noticed there wasn’t a single building remaining from my tour. After a few miles, I crossed one of the new bridges that span the Han River. In 1971, we would travel across a single bridge that was constructed by the military early in war. Today, there are four modern bridges, including one with curvy arches that is decorated to look like a dragon. Twice a week, a light show is held along the bridge and the dragon comes to life, breathing fire on cue.

  In another few miles, I reached the entrance to the airport, the very same spot that was once the heavily guarded entrance to our base. I paid a toll fee of slightly less than one dollar and pedaled in. The man at the toll booth seemed indifferent to an American riding his bike onto the airport grounds. I made it from the terminal side on the west over to my old home grounds on the east side of the runway, but could go no further. The area belongs to the Vietnamese military and is restricted.

  So I headed back into the motorized maelstrom of motorbikes, enjoying the scenery, searching for something I recognized, happy to be riding a bicycle that worked.
>
  TWENTY

  AT THE STARTING LINE

  May 8, 2016

  Every time I come to an Ironman triathlon, I know that I’ve shown up at the wrong place. I never feel more like an old man than I do at race time.

  Wherever you go the Ironman crowd looks much the same: a group of young, lean, and fit men and women who look like they were born to swim, bike, and run; a true collection of cardiovascular badasses. It’s all a little intimidating. The Ironman requires a lot of preparation and a certain commitment to fitness, and these folks have completely bought in. They have the intensity and focus of true believers; they’re the kind of people who view any free time as a provocation. They probably take pleasure in their own misery, and they no doubt feel most alive when they’re nearly dead.

  If I’m not the oldest person at this Ironman, I’m not far from it. I’m a wizened senior citizen; one of the threadbare elderly. I’ve gotten a little thicker around the mid-section than I used to be; my joints are stiff and rigid, my coordination and flexibility non-existent. In spite of my feeble efforts at working out with weights, my flesh and muscles hang slack from the bone, as if they’ve given up all hope. I’ve had to battle through shoulder, hip, knee, and elbow injuries, as well as various other ailments. In the last decade, I’ve gone from avoiding physical therapists to practically stalking them. Today, I’m roughly one inch shorter than I was thirty years ago. The only thing that has held constant over the years is my shoe size.

  Still, you’d have to be dead not to get excited about an Ironman triathlon. Every time I show up, I’m filled with energy and hope. This race is the culmination of weeks of training, and like every participant, I’m anxious to get started. Registration is a reassuringly familiar process: a long line of workers handing out race numbers, maps, instructions, and small bags of merchandise. Most of the goods are things you normally wouldn’t bother to purchase or even keep—items like notepads, stickers, and ballpoint pens. But since they carry the Ironman name or logo, their value increases exponentially. And so you tuck them away, hoping you’ll have a chance to use them in the future. They’re small symbols of a big achievement.

  A mandatory briefing thoroughly covers the race rules and course details. The entrants watch anxiously as every facet of the event is analyzed and dissected. These fine points are important for the leaders, who want to avoid a time penalty or disqualification, but my task is simple. I will try to follow the person in front of me so there’s little chance of me getting off course.

  The Ironman 70.3 Vietnam has more than fifteen hundred entrants from over sixty countries. It’s a diverse group of athletes from places like Singapore, Malaysia, Japan, the Philippines, Thailand, China, and Australia. In this part of the world, the distances are vast, but it still seems like much of the Pacific has dropped in for the race. The country of Vietnam is opening itself up to the world, and the China Beach resorts of Da Nang are becoming an increasingly popular tourist destination.

  Ironman is unparalleled for spreading a message of health, fitness, and overpriced merchandise. At the race expo, the selection is nearly endless—tee-shirts, water bottles, fancy bike jerseys, triathlon suits, space age-looking helmets, race belts, gels, powders, ointments, and more. There’s a mountain of Ironman gear designed to help you make it through the long day. I used to eagerly load up, but after a decade of Ironman races, I have more gear than I’ll ever need.

  The Ironman experience is an expensive outing. Entry fees, race gear (including a high-end bicycle), hotel stays, and travel expenses push the cost into the thousands of dollars. It’s well out of range for most people in developing countries, like Vietnam. Nonetheless, this is the second year for the Ironman 70.3 Vietnam, and the race organizers seem happy to have more Vietnamese entrants than the previous year.

  Many of the Vietnamese athletes are expatriates, working in one of the world’s fastest-growing economies. Vietnam is an inexpensive place for manufacturing high-end, low-tech goods; the country is one of the last reservoirs of cheap labor. Even though the economy is expanding at a rate of six percent or more a year, their GDP per capita is less than one half of their neighbor, China.

  During my trip, I heard the expression, “Vietnam is the new China” from foreign businessmen so many times that it began to sound trite. Triathlon is a great sport, but it’s a luxury most of Vietnam can’t yet afford. If you travel around the country, you’re much more likely to see a Vietnamese working in the rice paddies than jogging or swimming.

  Surprisingly, swimming is not part of the Vietnamese culture. Despite living in a country with over two thousand miles of coastline and thousands of rivers, streams, canals, lakes, and ditches, the Vietnamese rarely learn how to swim. The possibility of drowning is real in Vietnam, water is everywhere. In the countryside, Vietnamese bathe in it and spend much of their day working around it. The threat of flash flooding is high during the monsoon season, and boats and bridges are often unreliable. Since most adults have never learned to swim, the skill doesn’t get passed to the children. It even shows up in mortality statistics: drowning, not infectious diseases, is the leading cause of death in children, with at least thirty child drownings a day.

  The day before the race, I meet up with my teammates Ryszard and Lars. The race organizers hooked us up with one another, and I’m very fortunate to be a part of their team. Ryszard is in his early fifties and has competed in world age-group swim competitions around the globe. Lars, in his late twenties, lives in Ho Chi Minh City, and doesn’t seem a bit intimidated by the ferocious heat and humidity of Da Nang. He’ll be starting the run around 10:00 am and hopes to be done in around an hour and thirty minutes.

  I promise them a fifty-six mile bike ride in around three hours, fifteen minutes. That’s a modest time on the bike at best, but it is what it is. I’ve been riding around two hundred miles a week for the last month, all that an ancient set of heart and lungs can produce. At least cycling is the most forgiving of the three disciplines; if you get tired on a bike, you can simply pedal a little slower and you will (usually) recover. It’s harder to slow down and conserve energy when you swim or run—going slow seems to hurt just as much as going fast. I’m pretty sure that so long as I stay away from a flat tire or other mechanical problems on the bike, I can finish. On the bicycle, there aren’t as many ways for things to fall apart.

  Purists may object to doing the Ironman 70.3 as a relay—“real” Ironmen do all three disciplines—but those purists aren’t living in their eighth decade of life and they aren’t waging a daily battle against physical decrepitude. Besides, my choices were limited, and I know that doing something always feels better than doing nothing.

  I had accepted this modest challenge, and I hoped I would succeed.

  American music blares from industrial-sized loudspeakers as athletes wander about, making final preparations. Although the sun has barely risen, the temperature has already reached the high 80s. A drone the size of a toy truck hovers overhead, recording the whole scene for posterity.

  All this activity is a call to arms, of sorts. In just a few minutes, the Ironman 70.3 Vietnam will begin. The noise and enthusiasm are a little contrived, but the anxiety is real. A long morning in the relentless heat and humidity awaits everyone in the race.

  As I wait for the race to begin, I find myself experiencing many of the same emotions that I encountered nearly a half-century ago, when I flew in the backseat of an F-4 Phantom. The same anxiety and the same self-doubt that I once had before a combat mission are here for the Ironman. In both instances, as my time grew nearer, I wondered why I signed on for such a foolish endeavor. In Vietnam, my main job was medical. I could have avoided flying in a fighter and logged my flight time in a safer aircraft. Similarly, there is no reason on Earth for a man in his seventies to fly halfway around the world to ride his bicycle in one hundred degree heat.

  The night before a combat mission or an Ironman triathlon is a time of fitful, uneven sleep. Much of the night is spent lying in
bed, questioning your courage and sanity. A long evening of anxiety, self-pity, and despair is the best you can hope for.

  In both cases—the Ironman and the war—the challenge is great, but the rewards are even greater. These are goals well worth pursuing. In combat, your fear is a response to danger, while in an Ironman triathlon, it’s due to physical stress. In each case, your heart beats very fast, but for different reasons.

  Thankfully, the greatest fear of all—the fear of failing your comrades—comes only in combat. You hope you can measure up to the task at hand and find the courage to do your duty, but in the Ironman triathlon, you have only yourself to be concerned with. If you fail, no one else suffers.

  Still, this comparison only goes so far. I may be getting anxious before a big race, but I’m well aware of the differences between men at war and men at play.

  Sports and war are closely linked in the minds of many Americans. Both endeavors emphasize courage, discipline, self-sacrifice, and a sense of duty. Images of combat are a part of how we talk about sports, with phrases such as “blitz,” “ground game,” “trenches,” “aerial assault,” and “long bomb.”

  While the “sports as war” metaphor is a common one, it’s rarely used by people who’ve actually been to war. A triathlon is not warfare; it’s a triathlon, nothing more, nothing less. The stakes in war are much greater than those at an athletic event. Relatively few people are killed or wounded at sporting events. There is nothing inherently brave or courageous about a successful athlete; no sacrifice is asked or offered in service to a larger goal.

  When the gun sounds, my fear will pass, just as it has with every Ironman triathlon that I’ve ever done. I hope I do well in this race, but I know that regardless of my performance, I am more fortunate than many who served in Vietnam. I’ve been given forty-five full years of life that some never had. I’ve experienced the pleasures and challenges of work, marriage, children, and grandchildren.