I have been fortunate enough to be involved, in my own small way, with the Blue Dragon Children's Foundation, based in Vietnam, over the past few years. Many friends and family members have supported this cause by sponsoring me on motorcycle rides through Vietnam, India, and Tibet as we raised funds.

In late 2019, I decided to take on my biggest challenge yet to raise much-needed funds for Blue Dragon. Unfortunately, a global pandemic halted my travel plans, and it wasn’t until August 19th, 2022, that I finally flew out from Australia to cycle - using pedal power, not motor power - along the Rhine River. The journey covered some 1,400 kilometres, from the river’s source in Switzerland to the sea in the Netherlands.

I was entirely self-funded on this trip, meaning all donations went directly to Blue Dragon Children’s Foundation, helping improve the lives of some of Vietnam’s most vulnerable families.

Throughout the trip, I kept a blog, including posts about the preparations leading up to the ride. This book is a collection of those posts. While the blog was mainly shared with friends to keep them updated on my journey - the highs, the lows, the laughs, and the tears (I was sooooo unfit!), I wrote it primarily for my future self, so that one day I could look back and remember an incredible adventure.

In publishing this short reflection, I hope to inspire others to pursue their next challenge, whatever it may be. Life is too short. Thanks for reading.

So, why Blue Dragon Children's Foundation?

My connection to Blue Dragon goes back over a decade. My second son (in birth order, not favouritism) decided to travel to Vietnam for his 'Schoolies' trip instead of the typical Gold Coast getaway. For non-Australians, 'Schoolies' is a 'rite of passage' for school leavers, marking the end of secondary school, the beginning of adulthood, and usually involves travelling away with friends to 'party.' My son inherited my 'wanderer' gene, so the Gold Coast wasn’t adventurous enough for him. My wife, Kathy, wasn’t comfortable with him exploring unknown parts of the world at such a young age, so she 'enlisted' me to go along. While many teenage boys might cringe at the idea of travelling with their dad, my son saw the opportunity to save some money - I’d book and pay for the room, and he’d bunk with me, saving on accommodation and other costs!

During our father-son adventure, we took a motorcycle ride as pillion passengers (since neither of us could ride) around Hoi An in central Vietnam. The owner of the tour company, Mark Wyndham, was an Australian who had lived in Vietnam for years. Mark also organised an annual charity motorcycle ride called Rally Indochina, which raised funds for a local non-profit organisation called Blue Dragon Children's Foundation. He shared the story of Blue Dragon’s founder and fellow Australian, Michael Brosowski who, as a young teacher, had encountered street children shining shoes in Hanoi, struggling to survive, and from this experience, Blue Dragon was born.

My involvement began when I signed up for one of the charity rides, paying a donation that went directly to Blue Dragon - a charity I knew little about and didn’t really care about at the time. For me, it was more about getting my adventure 'fix,' as I had never ridden a motorcycle before, let alone across a foreign country.

As the ride approached, alongside learning to ride a motorcycle, and reading up on Vietnam’s alarming motorcycle accident statistics, I started to research the charity more thoroughly. Even then, I didn’t feel a deep connection to it, but I decided to raise additional funds through my network beyond my initial donation. I also updated my Will to ensure my family would be taken care of in case I became one of those road statistics!

When I arrived in Hanoi, I finally visited Blue Dragon’s Centre, where they care for vulnerable children found on the streets or rescued from exploitative conditions in factories. These children had either left home in search of a better future and fallen victim to traffickers, or their families, often in remote villages in northern Vietnam, had been convinced by traffickers to send them away for education, with promises of a brighter future. Once taken from their village, the traffickers would cut off all contact and sell the children into slavery.

This 'real-world' experience was both eye-opening and heart-wrenching for me and my fellow riders. The ride took on a whole new meaning as we travelled through villages and saw wide-eyed children running out of their houses and schools, drawn by the thundering sound of our Ural 650 motorcycles, to wave and laugh. It struck me even more - these kids could easily become targets for traffickers.

 On the final night of the ride, my connection to Blue Dragon deepened. Michael thanked the group for their fundraising efforts and shared a story about a rescue that had taken place that very day. A young teenage girl had been rescued from a clothing factory in southern Vietnam. Her family had been given a phone when she left the village to "attend school" to stay in contact with her. However, once the traffickers took her, they confiscated her phone, and she was unable to reach her family during her entire captivity. Fortunately, she earned enough trust to borrow a phone briefly and gave her family vague details of the factory surroundings she could see from a window. Blue Dragon used this information to track her down and rescue her. When they recovered the traffickers' phone, it was filled with panicked messages from her family that had gone unanswered. I could only imagine the anguish that family had endured. I committed to looking at ways to continue my association with Michael and the Foundation. Over the following few years, assisted by wonderful family, friends and colleagues, we raised more funds on the back of other motorcycle adventures in India and Tibet. This fund-raising ride would be pedal power, on my own, supporting a great cause while getting my need ‘to be a nomad’ fix … a boy’s own adventure!