While traveling to Hanoi, I read Andrew Pham’s Catfish and Mandala, a first-person account of an American’s bicycle trip through Vietnam. I resisted the book for as long as I could, because it felt like assigned reading. How could I not read a book about a bike trip through Vietnam?
I also resisted it because the author is Vietnamese-American. The story is about a hyphenated American’s search for his roots, a genre that I have difficulty whipping up enthusiasm for, even if I know it’s good for me. These stories lend themselves to too many interrogatory passages.
The men were resplendent in their traditional feathered codpieces and magenta motorcycle jackets. The women did as they had for thousands of years, plaiting one another’s hair and trading gossip about this year’s Golden Globe nominees. They were poor, yes, but they seemed to possess an elemental peace that eluded their wealthy American cousins…
Catfish and Mandala isn’t like this. The book is good, and it nails what it’s like to bike the length of Vietnam. The author had a much rougher time of it than I did, catching dysentery early on and dealing with the special antagonism that the Vietnamese reserve for Vietnamese-Americans.
Anyhow, one small detail of the book particularly impressed me. When Pham landed in Tokyo, he cycled out of Narita airport. And when he took off for Saigon, he pedaled back to Narita and wheeled his bike right up to the check-in counter. Airports are massive and official. It seemed quirky and almost cheeky to bike right into one and then right out of another. I wanted to do that.
When my opportunity finally arrived, I was almost denied. The man at the Hanoi ticket counter told me that Lao Aviation’s planes were too small. I should have booked with Vietnam Air. He then began muttering into a walkie-talkie, affecting that blank I’m-talking-into-a-walkie-talkie stare. Finally an answer came back: I couldn’t board the plane.
With no real cards to play, I did the only thing I could. I irrationally maintained that my bike is “smaller than it looks,” whatever that means, and made little pity-me frownie faces at the staff. Shockingly, this stratagem worked. I deflated my tires, sent the bike through the giant X-ray machine (which revealed that my bicycle is, in fact, a bicycle, not a giant bicycle-shaped gun), and skipped through passport control.
In Laos, my bike was waiting for me when I got to baggage claim. I pumped up the tires while the taxi porters and airport staff stared. I pushed away from the curb in front of the passenger pick-up area, slipped into the stream of tuktuks and scooters on Highway 13, and pedaled to Vientiane.
