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A team of brothers are
set to ride the entire
Ho Chi Minh Trail on
45-year-old Honda 67
motorcycles, raising
money for a good
cause en route. Story by
Linh Giang
.
SOCIETY AT LARGE
LIVING
SOCIETY AT LARGE
T
his April, David Seton, manager
of two gold mines in Quang
Nam province, will be riding the
length of Vietnam, from Hanoi
to the southern metropolis of Ho Chi
Minh City together with his brothers.
Along the way, they will raise money
for much needed healthcare services
for women and infants in some of the
more remote areas of central Vietnam.
The Trail is never a small challenge,
but riding it on tiny, aging Honda 67s
with their small 50cc engines will make
the task that bit more arduous. All up,
the team will be in the saddle for more
than 20 days. Their route is a mountain-
ous ride on roads built by Vietnamese
soldiers to transport military arms dur-
ing the American War.
The riders will travel over beautiful
mountain passes, through lush jungle
and past sandy beaches and remote vil-
lages. Some of the roads are extremely
dangerous, the weather in the tropical
jungle is unpredictable, and mosquitoes
and inevitable upset stomachs await.
However, Seton is not daunted; in
fact, he has the enthusiasm of young
boy.
THE GOLD RUSH
Seton is executive chairman of Besra,
a gold mining company with mines in
Bong Mieu and Phuoc Son, Quang Nam
province. He came to Vietnam 24 years
ago, becoming one of the first foreign in-
vestors when the country began opening
its doors to outside investment.
Seton saw opportunities for gold
mining in Bong Mieu because the area
had been exploited by the local Cham
people thousands of years ago. The
French then mined the area for four
decades and later, in the 1980s, a
state-owned company was assigned to
manage the area. That venture failed
however, with Bong Mieu subsequently
being overrun by illegal miners.
In 1991 and 2003, Olympus Pacific
Minerals, which was renamed Besra last
year, was licensed together with two
Vietnamese companies to explore and
exploit gold in Bong Mieu and Phuoc
Son, respectively. Over the course of a
decade the Seton family ploughed mil-
lions into setting up the business.
Besra has invested more than
VND45 billion ($ 2.3 million) in many
programs to support local residents,
such as infrastructure, clean water sys-
tems, school classrooms, new houses
for low income families, health care
programs, student support and local
agri-economics programs. This time,
with the Great Honda 67 Ride, Seton
hopes to not only raise funds, but also
awareness of the need to dramati-
The long way down
David Seton testing his wheels