It was Sunday. On this day the young people were enjoying riding on the main streets in downtown Saigon. The streets were literally flooded with bikes that carried young couples. The couples were having dates on Honda's. As a middle-aged rider, I was very jealous of them, for I had never had the chance to ride when young. Fortunately, however, I was able to be one of those couples on the very first night in Vietnam. To tell the truth, Bruce had suggested, before my leaving Japan, to take Hong-ha to the roof-top garden restaurant of the Rex Hotel, a landmark of Saigon. I was a passenger on the bike driven by her. The traffic was tremendously heavy. The grip ends of the handle bar almost hit those of the bikes travelling on both sides of our bike and nearly kissed the bikes that kept no distance ahead or behind. It was like a river of bikes steadily flowing on a street. However, once in the stream, you find a worse situation, in which each rider zig zags, trying to get ahead of other riders every second. The bikes in Saigon are not equipped with rear-view mirrors. The reason is simple. Because of the heavy traffic you don't have time to look into the mirrors. Even if you do that, you will only see countless bikes rushing toward you and will find you can't do anything about it. In addition, very few traffic lights are set at the intersections. Nonetheless, two great currents of bikes never stop, when they meet at an intersection. The riders never signal with the indicators, but talk with the eyes and skillfully get through the flow, making a crazy concert with buzzing sounds. The Vietnamese are clever enough to believe that our five senses are more trustworthy than mechanical devices. Their bikes looked like a cluster of butterflies dancing in the sky. In the four previous years I had travelled around 100,000km by motorcycle, however, I was stunned and at the same time was really impressed by their riding techniques and the handling of the traffic chaos. "Thank the Devil, I have survived till now by chance, but at last I am facing my death by a traffic accident in Vietnam. This is the end of me. That's rather what I have expected for my death!" That time I, as a cowardly person, truly wished the death on the spot, if possible.

Now to get out of Saigon, there were two worries that bothered and kept me up at night. One was how to ride out of this city of traffic hell and the other was how to cope with the notorious Vietnamese policemen.

I had decided, beforehand in Japan, to leave Saigon between 12 and 2 o'clock in the afternoon. I had read an article in a book that the Vietnamese have a custom of having a "siesta"(afternoon nap), which is probably due to the French influence. Anyway, I had expected there would have been no traffic in the streets during the siesta time. To my great disappointment, Mr.Huong, the owner of my hotel, told me this custom had long disappeared in Saigon. Big problem! Let me tell you I didn't have the slightest confidence in riding through that roaring flood of bikes. My travel plan by motorcycle confronted this fundamental crisis. My trip wouldn't start unless I managed to get out of Saigon, anyway. "I will leave this hotel at five tomorrow morning!" "You don't have to go so early. Make it at six.", said Huong. The next morning, I got up at 5:30. It was, however, closer to seven when I left the hotel. I took a wrong turn while trying to follow the detour with lighter traffic that Huong had marked on a map the previous night. Eventually I was thrown into the rush-hour traffic. I was like a lost child. Although I had the map fixed to the bike, I couldn't find the names of the streets. Even the best wrist-watch with the latest built-in compass can't show the way to a person who doesn't know where he is. Moreover, if he can't understand Vietnamese. I was at a loss and trying to collect my thoughts when I happened to run across the Rex hotel where I had dinner on the first night and finally found the way to escape from the city. I should have riden along the main street. Complicated tactics sometimes ruin the best strategy. To think too much always brings you disaster.

The other anxiety was the police. It is reported that the Vietnamese policemen, like Mexican ones, make a living out of taking money from innocent tourists. The worst case happened to an American tourist. The person was arrested on the charge of only taking a photograph and put in jail with no outside contact for six months. The American was supposedly a man of morality, who rejected to give a bribe. On the first morning in Vietnam I somewhat grudgingly rode behind Hong-ha as a passenger again. After riding only one kilometer from the hotel, a traffic cop stopped us. She had a long argument with the policeman, but all was in vain. It cost us $15. Fifteen dollars is a half-month salary for the average Vietnamese. It's a really good side-job. Hong-ha accused me of being a target on account of my touristy clothes, because without them I look exactly like a Vietnamese national. I then seriously thought of giving up travelling by motorcycle in Vietnam, remembering the merciless face of the young policeman. But, then I wouldn't be able to realize my dream of a future motorcycle journey around the world if I stayed away from the tiny troubles made by the vicious Vietnamese policemen waiting for me. I sorted out 30 one-dollar bills, which I had prepared for 30 policemen, into 3 ten-dollar bribes for 3 policemen. I raised the amount of bribing ten times as much as I had expected, from one to ten dollars. For, I had been charged $15 on the previous day. I made three sets of $10 and copies of my passport and international license, and put them into separate pockets. The original passport and the license could be the best hostages for the police. If money solves the problem, it's OK. Everyone calls me a bad boy, but to tell the truth, I have never been put in jail.

Hong-ha showed me around Saigon on the Honda bike, so I gradually came to know how to ride there. The next day for the first time, I was given permission to ride "my" Honda by Hong-ha on the way to the tunnel network of Cu Chi, which extends in a vast area 30 to 40 km north of Saigon. I was excited and delighted, but on the other hand, I was scared. I felt the same uneasy feeling as when I rode on a bike for the first time at riding school. In the suburbs of Saigon, Vietnam shows yet another face. A road extends through peaceful rice paddy fields. Therefore, of course a well-experienced rider like me can easily traverse that kind of road. However, I said to Hong-Ha, "You see, now you can tell I am an excellent rider!"

In the usual farming area,

the Viet Cong excavated tunnels 200 km long to resist the US and its puppet government of South Vietnam. The length of 200 km is two times as long as that of the subway system of Osaka. The tunnels were surrounded by the US bases, and surprisingly, the US headquarter was built just above a part of the tunnel network. In this underground network 10,000 Viet Cong soldiers lived. They even had schools and hospitals there. The US knew of the existence of the tunnel network. So the US army organized a specially trained unit and sent it, together with hunting dogs, to the jungle so that they could search out the tunnels. But, the Viet Cong were wise enough to beat them. For example, the Viet Cong designed the entrances and some parts of the tunnels so narrow that only slim Viet Cong soldiers could pass. They planted sharp bamboo spikes hidden under the critical steps. In order to deceive the hunting dogs, they rubbed soap in to the entrance lids of the tunnels, which were covered with fallen leaves and grass. Accordingly, the US was obliged to burn the jungle over the tunnels and threw down countless bombs. Even now, the craters made by the bombing open their big mouths 5 - 10 meters away from the entrances of the tunnels. It was a hard job moving around through the tunnels. I bent my body deep and walked in half-sitting posture. In addition to hard exercise, it was so humid in the tunnels that I sweated profusely. I shared a part of the experiences of the Viet Cong soldiers and imagined their hard life in the tunnels. At the same time I thought of the civilians who were confined and tortured in the worst-conditioned prisons by the South Vietnamese Army. I guessed the Viet Cong soldiers might have had a less hard life than these civilians. Throughout the war, 200,000 innocent civilians were arrested and many of them were killed or disabled by the South Vietnamese Army of Ngo Dinh Diem and Nguyen Van Thiew governments. The South Vietnamese people fought the war of ten years and won the victory against the United States after paying a great sacrifice. Yet, politics is naturally cruel. Ironically, those guerrillas themselves, who had fought in the tunnels, were put in jail or also known as "re-education camps", and many of them were killed at the hands of the ex-allied North Vietnamese Army led by Ho Chi Minh. The South Vietnamese were victims of the "Domino Theory", the Western hemisphere's fear of communism dominating the whole world. During the Vietnam War, one million Vietnamese soldiers were killed or, are still missing and four million civilians were deprived of their lives or injured.

National Highway 1 runs eastward from Saigon and turns northward when it hits the South China Sea,

and then extends all the way to Hanoi along the sea coast. Hue, an old city located in the center of Vietnam 1,100 km north of Saigon, was the returning point of my trip. The city is 70 km north of Hai Van Pass that , in the past, divided this country into two - Vietnam in the north and the Kingdom of Cham in the south. National Highway 1 nearly has no traffic lights. This sole road doesn't require those things, because it has only a small number of intersections even in its linking cities and towns. This road is basically paved, however, its surface condition is not excellent, being blessed with countless bumps and potholes. The road has, in some places, reformed itself back to an original dirt road. The cars avoid those potholes and intrude into your territory. The drivers pay more attention to the potholes ahead of them than to the vehicle advancing toward them. So you must watch and remember the bumps and the potholes in the other lane as well as in yours so that you can prevent yourself from being hit by the car that rushes toward you in your lane. In reality, the lanes are only a virtual existence divided at the center of the road only in the brains of individual drivers, because the center line is not painted on this road. In fact, the lane is meaningless and the waste of both paint and manpower under the given condition that drivers must always zig zag to avoid the animals, bumps and the potholes in the road. The potholes give you, not only the possibility of your hitting a car, but also a great chance for those who want to commit suicide. They sometimes form incredibly great craters. Once you ride over one of these, you might even lose your life just as if you fell into a pit set by the Viet Cong. Therefore, you must keep watching the surface of the road, ignoring your desire to appreciate the peaceful and beautiful scenery passing by you. The word "highway" in the name of National Highway 1 means nothing. The best bike for this road is an off-road bike, not a Honda Dream, to say nothing of a racing bike. The riding on this highway was, however, very enjoyable thanks to its much less traffic than in Saigon. My Honda Dream recorded a maximum speed of 100 kph on a good surface.

Finally after safely navigating Highway 1, I realized that my real enemy of the motorcycle trip was not the police or those potholes, but the rain. I had a belief that Vietnam has rain from December only in the north region between Hue and Hanoi, but I soon realized the south-east coast facing the South China Sea was having its rainy season. In this region, there are only two seasons a year. A dry season begins from February and ends in August. For the rest of the year it rains. Sometimes the rain pours down like a cascading waterfall. I didn't have good rain gear. As a result, both my feet enjoyed bathing in their shoes.

Riding Highway 1, I felt a strange feeling.

Although I thought that the country has rivers only in the Mekong Delta in the west of Saigon, I crossed dozens of rivers on the way to Hue. All of them were abundant with water and as large as the River Yodo in Osaka. As the major towns cling to these rivers, each time I crossed a big river, I guessed the name of the town by checking it on the map. The reason why I had to guess came from the fact that the roads in Vietnam are not equipped with the traffic signs to show the names of the towns. So, you have no other way than guessing the name of the town you are riding through from its size and the travelling distance on the map. Travelling along Highway 1 from the south, I witnessed the changes of the land use - from rubber tree plantations, palm tree forests, sugar-cane farms and to rice paddy fields. Probably because of the rainy season, a lot of water was supplied to the paddy fields. The road through the fields looked like a bridge over a lake. The people who live in these farming areas are purely innocent-minded. When I parked the bike at the edge of the road for a short cigarette break, lots of people gathered and surrounded my bike.

One of them of course asked where I was from, and every time I was welcomed by their strong curiosity and big smiles. Before the trip I was worried about that the mind of the Vietnamese, who had experienced the sudden, rapid change of value judgment, might be disturbed and devastated by the nation's rapid open economic policy. But, even the policemen, whom I had been worried about most, never bothered me upon leaving Saigon. The people were really kind and seemed to be the last human beings who would steal something from others. The young generation living there were energetic and cheerful-looking, which showed me an absolute contrast when compared with those of Japan. Their eyes were shining. Among them English is very popular. I met a lot of young people who attend English schools three days a week after school or work. While the young in Japan go to English classes so as to find heterosexual friends or simply due to their illusion that English is prestigious, those in Vietnam take studying English very seriously so that they can get better jobs. As a result, the latter improve more quickly. In the past the Vietnamese had to learn French and later Russian. Now they learn English, ironically enough, the language of their former enemy. After the victory of Vietnam War in 1975, Vietnam once more got involved in the international political game. In 1978, Vietnam with support from the Russians, fought against the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia which was supported by China and Thailand. The war lasted another decade and ended in 1989. The Vietnamese are very tough people. They beat France and the US after World WarⅡ. Vietnam became independent from the West through the battles of more than a century. The country finally put an end to its long history of war and opened its doors, only some years ago, to foreign tourists. And now, the offsprings of these tough Vietnamese eagerly learn English and devote themselves to weekend riding. The Vietnamese are now breaking through the thick wall of stagnant socialism and dream of the construction of an "abundant society". It seems that Vietnam is already determined to become one of the members of the international money game. Honda bikes occupy the country. One tourist told me that deaths from traffic accidents in Saigon reach 15 a day. In the metropolis the Honda riders are forced to wear face masks due to the serious air pollution. They can't afford helmets and gas masks. Tremendously heavy traffic and resultant noise pollution eat the tranquil, healthy life of the residents.

The average monthly income of the Vietnamese is reported to be around $30.00

This fact attracts capitalists of the "borderless economy" as well as tourists from the world. In this country you pay only 40 Yen for fixing a puncture of a bike, 70 Yen for one-hour bike wash, $1.00 for one-hour cyclo ride, $1.00 for hair-cut and $4.50 for one-hour massage. In addition to the nation's cheap manpower, the diligence and explosive spiritual energy of the young generation will surely bring about rapid economic development, like some other Asian countries, to this country in the near future. The invincible Vietnamese are now having another war - an economic war this time. It will be a nightmare if the citizens in Saigon can make enough money for motorcars. For, the city is already suffocated even by space-saving, energy-saving motorbikes. However, Vietnam has just started improving the infrastructure for economic development, and so the people, who have not been polluted by money yet, are, in general, naive and healthy in mind. Their big smiles cheer up the depressed tourists from developed countries. Nonetheless, I hear there are lots of robbers and pick-pockets in Saigon and I am afraid the faces of the residents seem to be rather serious. Unfortunately I see a sign of the same shadow on their faces as found on those of the tourists from developed countries. The happy smiles that I received from many Vietnamese people during the trip make me think about what poverty means and what richness really is. Money sometimes makes us happy, but sometimes makes us unhappy. The traffic hell in Saigon and the gradual loss of the residents' smile project an ominous shadow on the bright future of Vietnam. I wish the people, who live in this beautiful country full of green, will once again show their wisdom that kept America's modern knowledge away from the Cu Chi tunnels. Only their "wisdom" will wipe out this shadow and bring about the true prosperity that our developed countries haven't been able to realize.