Adventure-traveller Ants Bolingbroke-Kent is loading her panniers and setting off
on a solo trip down the Ho Chi Minh Trail. And she'll be wearing
Weise clothing and
Ugly Fish eye-wear. Here's her latest update;
For the next seven weeks
It’ll just be me and my trusty Honda C90 moped: no back-up, no
translators, no medics, no crew. Just me and the familiar hum of
90-cc of raw moped power.
My moped mission will
kick off in Hanoi, head south over the Truong Song mountains into
Laos, bump through lots of remote jungly places, pootle through
Cambodia and finally end in Ho Chi Minh City, in Vietnam’s far
south. Whilst I am a relative veteran of ridiculous adventures in
unfeasible vehicles, this will be the first time I have gone solo.
For someone who barely knows a spanner from a mole grip and is
terrified of spiders, snakes and the dark, it could be quite a
challenge. I’ll have to learn to survive on my wits, fix the bike
when it grinds to a halt in the middle of a large river and sleep in
a jungle inhabited by elephants, Very Large Spiders and even the odd
tiger. Help.
If you’re wondering
what the heck the Ho Chi Minh Trail is, the long version is explained
by those clever people at Wikipedia here. The short version is that
it was how the Vietnamese won the American War. And it’s the reason
Laos, which hosted much of the Trail, retains the deadly accolade of
being the most bombed country on the planet. Even today, several
hundred people die every year from unexploded bombs, and 25% of the
land there remains unfarmable due to contamination by UXO. The areas
of Vietnam and Cambodia which the Trail passed through were hammered
equally mercilessly.
When I was working in
the region last year I was staggered by the amount of UXO people have
to live with, and how little the US are doing to clear it. There are
bombs everywhere. In one village I travelled through, a whole family
were blown up by UXO two days after we were there. It really is
tragic. To get an idea of it have a gander at a photo album I’ve
uploaded here. These photos were taken in Laos in the Spring of
2012.
Hence I’m using this
mission as a means of raising a chunk of cash for Mines AdvisoryGroup (MAG). MAG are a fantastic UK-based charity who work to clear
mines and ordnance all over the world, with Laos, Cambodia and
Vietnam being one of their key areas. If you’re interested I’ve
attached an update on MAGs very recent work in Laos and Cambodia...
If you fancy donating
to MAGs splendid work, I’ve set up a fundraising page here. All you
do is click on the Donate Now button, pop the dosh in and Sam’s
your Uncle. I’ll be absolutely cockahoop if I can raise £1000 for
them.
If you’re interested
in seeing what sort of pickles I get into, I’m social media’d up
to the eyeballs so you can follow my ride in a number of ways.
Firstly, I’ll be penning the odd blog on my website
www.theitinerant.co.uk. If you’re a Tweep I’ll be tweeting as
@AntsBK. And for those who prefer Facebook I’ll be adding the odd
bit of news and photos at facebook.com/AntsBK. If all goes to plan
I’ll also be writing a book about the journey, to be published by
Summersdale in the Spring of 2014.
That’s all for now...
Tally-ho!
Ants xxx
After months of planning Ants Bolingbroke-Kent made it to the Start Line in
Hanoi, ready for her journey along the Ho Chi Minh
Trail. She'll be wearing a Weise jacket and riding the Pink Panther Creatored by Explore Indochina, Before leavibng the garage Ants asked Phu,
one of the mechanics who’d built her, whether he thought the Ho Chi Minh
Trail was possible on a Honda C90, ‘Yeah, easy’ he replied, ‘as long as
you don’t forget to put oil in’. The bike started life as a
1989 green Honda C50 and is now the hot-pink C90.
‘It’s had new everything – new pistons, valves, spokes, chain,
exhaust, suspension – everything. Look, its the best bloody Honda C90
on the planet’.
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