Two retired Indian, both at the age of 62, have made a bicycle trip to call on people in four 4 countries in the Greater Mekong Sub-region (GMS) to save the environment and come to visit the Himalaya Mountain in Indian.

S.R.Sen and U.B.Mayood, who left India on August 21, have left Vietnam to continue their month-long trip to Cambodia.

They came to Vietnam on September 9th, after spending two weeks in Thailand and Laos with the idea of discovering the four GMS countries, including Thailand, Laos, Vietnam and Cambodia, by bicycle came during the days of their retirement.

“We are already retired, and we want to do something different from our normal daily routine”, Mayood told Tuoi Tre News.

Instead of staying home and enjoying their rest days, Sen and Mayood wanted to travel to promote friendship, the cooperation and universal brotherhood among various nationalities.

“The first message from them is to save the nature, as Vietnam is a very beautiful and lovely country. The second message is to promote the friendship between India and Vietnam”, said Manoj Kumar, Indian Consul and Head of Chancery.

Vietnam and Indian have recently bolstered their bilateral relationships on all fronts, from political to education.

“We went to the central post, the War Remnants Museum, the Saigon River, and the churches,” Sen cited some famous places in Ho Chi Minh City that they have visited by bicycle after arriving. “This is the first time we come to Vietnam. The people is very nice and friendly”, he smiled.

 “Local people are very cooperative in helping us to find the way to our desired destination.”

The main problem is language barrier, and many local people in Hanoi and neighboring areas didn’t understand what the two Indian asked during their two-day visit to the capital city of Vietnam. 

In general, the people in all related countries are friendly and cooperative, but what brought by the Vietnamese people has surpassed their expectation, they said.

“We are considering biking between cities in our next trip instead of boarding buses or trains as we’ve recently done.”

The two men brought around $1,000 for this trip, and have so far spent around half of their budget.

“Traveling with a tight budget is fine to us, as we often find one way or another to save money, especially in localities where local authorities offer us a place to cook or camp.”

“Moreover, we don’t expect any comfort when beginning to taking the road trip.”