I don’t know what time it was, but where it was dark it was pure black, and where it was light it was fluorescent white. We’d begun at twilight in bits and pieces, and it took a few hours for us to fully assemble, six of us, racing our motorbikes the last kilometers out of the Saigon metropolitan area. I rode with a Soviet era medium format camera knocking about in the cargo box behind me.

As tractor-trailers roared inches away from my mirror, they blared their air horns as they passed, as though I should have been out of their way already. I felt the suck of vacuum draw my bike under, followed by a blast of air blowing me away. Nothing freezes my blood like the sound of those ululating horns reverberating through every bone.

Out of the darkness rose every imaginable obstacle, sometimes separately, often simultaneously, as though I were living in a video game bent on my destruction. Like some sort of benthic squid, a child on a much-too-large bicycle slowly materialized from the shadows, lazily pedaling across the road until being absorbed by the shroud of sticky night on the other side. A jumble of plywood and corrugated metal jutted out into traffic. Somewhere within I saw an old lady, bent in half, selling lottery tickets from the ramshackle stand. I suddenly penetrated a cloud of smoke and dodged a pack of dogs. Three teens on scooters going the wrong way, a pile of garbage on fire, an obviously drunk old man struggling to keep his bike on a straight course— and my group, all going 80 kilometers per hour, unfazed, dodged and weaved through it all, sometimes in our own lanes, oftentimes not.

Somehow, I kept up.

I was part of a group of Honda 67 aficionados on our way up to Nha Trang for an annual gathering. The leader of this pack was Dat Monkey, meticulous master mechanic, charismatic provocateur, and one of the organizers of the event. Unlike most Vietnamese, he is tall and lean, a basketball star, he will tell you, with lots of medals to back it up. He delivers his brand of fast-talking, deadpan humor with gesticulations, waving his arms wildly with the longest, thinnest cigarette on the market clamped between two extended fingers.

His hair is short except for a bit of a cock’s tail sprouting from the back, which can’t exactly keep up with the animated movements of his head. It follows along as best it can at an amusing millisecond delay. It was Dat Monkey that invited me along, and I accepted without much thought and didn’t really know what to expect, besides a few basic facts that he shared with me:

I didn’t press for more. I guessed I’d just find out when I got there.

I moved to Vietnam a few years earlier, unaware of the region’s motorbike culture. Depending on where you look, motorbikes make up between 65% and 95% of traffic. I have been riding since I was 12, so this revelation was a fun bonus.

As the colloquial name implies, (“sáu bảy” means 67 in Vietnamese), the Honda 67 was released in Vietnam in 1967. The bike holds a sentimental, iconic place in the collective conscience here. In the west, we know it as the Honda SS50, a small, lightweight motorbike with a steel frame pressed together like a clam shell. You can easily pivot it 180° on its kickstand, pull it out of a ditch, or haul it over a curb or log if you’re in a jam. (Ask me how I know.) The frame is mated to an air-cooled 50cc engine and powered by the furious pumping of a single, wee piston, about the size of a baby’s fist.

As a masochist and plastiphobe, the things that compelled me to buy a Honda 67 were its simplicity and its elegant (if not somehow insectile) styling, and its compact form factor, perfect for slipping through city traffic and easily finding parking. The 67 distills the motorcycling experience down to its minimalist essence. It’s one of the smallest vehicles of any kind that you can mount in one place and then magically dismount some 200 kilometers away. It will get you there in reasonable time, with reasonable speed and power – and look good doing it. To achieve this with anything less than a sáu bảy means you’d have to be teleporting.

While Dat was borderline evasive regarding details about the meetup (perhaps he considered them mundane minutiae or just wanted to keep me guessing), he was more forthcoming when asked about 67s in general.

“When 67s first became available, who bought them and how popular were they?”

Dat: “Vietnam was one of the biggest motorcycle markets in southeast Asia back then.” he said. “The 67 was designed for fuel efficiency but it was also considered stylish and a status symbol. It was expensive. If you had one, people assumed you were wealthy. After 1975, the bike was kind of forgotten. People in the Mekong used it to pull carts of vegetables and other cargo. Some still do! The first to actually begin restoring them were Hanoians in the 1990s, but the Saigon scene developed faster and we ended up taking the lead and helping the Hanoians. Now there are national gatherings every Reunification Day (April 30th).

“The guys who started the scene are old now, but in the past few years, these bikes have been getting more popular with the younger generation. They have been taking notice of how beautiful the restored bikes are. It’s still mostly old guys, though. You see some female owners in the cities.”

In America, sometimes gangs form around the motorcycle lifestyle. Are there any such groups in the world of the 67 in Vietnam?

Dat: “The police are very strict here. In spite of how some of these guys look or act, there is no significant outlaw biker culture. For example, at the gathering, about 30 guys started racing in front of the resort. The cops immediately appeared and warned the organizers to behave. Drink responsibly. And reminded everyone that they were waiting outside. Motorbikes have always been mainstream here, so bikers were never unusual or considered troublesome or rebels.”

Most of the people reading this will be westerners. Is there anything you would like them to know?

Dat: “Our community is very big and growing and we are involved in lots of charity work. Enthusiasts in Italy, Japan, and the Netherlands are aware of the large and well-developed scene here in Vietnam. The general director of Honda Vietnam attended the annual meetup, bowed to me on the stage, said some nice words, and donated 3,000 pens and 600 backpacks to show admiration and gratitude for spreading love for the Honda brand throughout the country.”

Binh.

I photographed and spoke with others at the event about their 67s as well.

What’s the longest trip you’ve taken on this bike?

Binh: “This trip! Five days and more than 1000km (620 miles) through these beautiful coastal roads and majestic passes. Loved it!”

Have you modified your bike for a long trip like this?

Binh: “Yes. For the first eight years that I owned this bike, it had the original 50cc engine. When I was in college, I took it on a 155km (96 mile) trip. After arriving back in Saigon, my whole body was sore and my ass especially hurt because of how long the trip took traveling at less than 60km/hr (37mph). After that trip, I upgraded the engine to 110cc because I am very passionate about speed.”

You’re a pretty tall guy for a bike like this. How far can you comfortably ride it?

Quoc: “Not far! It doesn’t take long to feel fatigue and discomfort. But I love it so much, I just deal with it.”

How do the ladies like these 67s? If you’re a single guy picking up a girl for a first date, would a bike like this help or hinder you?

Quoc: “It’s really not very common for girls in Vietnam to like these,” he says with a laugh.

Quoc with his bike, named Target. 150cc, top speed: 160 km/h (100mph)

Shot with:

As I walked the grounds photographing and talking to people about their bikes, the buzz of the event and my surroundings was interrupted by a sudden and keen sense of irritation – why the hell did I choose to do this with a heavy, clunky Kiev 60? And then I remembered the subtle encouragement of a friend.

The five pounds worth of laugh-out-loud large Soviet camera came with me. As predicted, it really did become a sweaty burden and literal pain as I lugged it around the sprawling venue at 90-plus degrees Fahrenheit. With only 12 shots per roll, cumbersome film loading, and limited time, I felt like every shot had to count.

Kiev 60s are already notorious for loudly clapping mirrors, overlapping frames, quality control, and reliability issues. After jostling around for 12 hours in a cargo box, the frame counter was outta whack and was reading erratically. Based on a tip I’d read somewhere, I had to remember not to advance the film too fast, crank it completely to the end of its travel, and allow the lever to return to its resting place by slowly guiding it back with my thumb. In theory, this prevents overlap, but I didn’t remember to do this every time. Did I even load the film right? Was I getting full frame shots? A smart person would have done this with an Olympus XA, I decided. But I had already crossed the Rubicon and I’d once heard that fortune favors the bold, so the only thing that made sense to do was keep shooting, results be damned.

At one point I was surprised to see the tables suddenly turn, as I was targeted by a much more experienced and professional individual, a YouTuber for the scene. The camera and the questions were now trained on me and my bike.

A bike Dat built for the event’s auction sold for about $3,200. It was won by a guy who bid only so he could come to next year’s meetup to donate it to auction. This was a modest amount compared to the $20,000+ one attendee invested in his 67, which featured a dual overhead cam and two pairs of valves, among other modifications. 100% original, stock bikes restored to concours specifications can fetch twice that sum.

After the auction, we drank and danced on the stage. It groaned under the weight of over a hundred revelers and threatened to collapse. Recognizing a potential disaster when I see one, I quickly got off and returned to my table to drink with the squares who were more likely to see tomorrow.

To turn the trip into a loop, we took a different route back to Saigon. We climbed the mountains into the southernmost reaches of the central highlands. My little 110cc beat its oil into a froth, sweat, and audibly strained under the weight of myself, my partner, and our cargo as I navigated the switchbacks, blind curves, and sharp rises and dips that brought us to the significantly cooler climes of Dalat some 5,000 feet above sea level. Then we descended once again into the hazy, yellow furnace of the Mekong river basin all the way home.

Before the trip was over, customization, modifications, and improvements swirled in my mind. I began imagining what I could do to squeeze a little more power from the engine. I need a better saddle too. Having disc brakes on those downhills sure would have been nice. I’ve seen them on other 67s— I wonder how they convert them. My lighting is insufficient – that night ride was crazy… and so on.

The photos from the Kiev 60 had the qualities I sought, and all the anxieties about it now seem rather for naught. The notorious Soviet tank stood up to the stresses of travel and use in the field, and its performance thumbed its nose in the face of its detractors. I don’t think I’d feel the same sense of gratification if I shot the days with that previously pined-for Olympus XA or a DSLR. The challenges and the risk of failure makes the satisfaction of good final products all the more. It’s the reason I continue to shoot with film, in general, and with this camera, specifically. Some people just like doing things the hard way.

I also feel fortunate to have fallen in with this solid crew of new friends, gurus, and enablers that may help me realize my sáu bảy vision. Good folks to tinker, plot, drink, talk, and ride with, but beyond that, it’s been really cool to be part of keeping a scene like this alive— photographing, celebrating, and amplifying the legacy of these compact, sprightly bikes almost 60 years after they first emerged to cruise the bustling avenues of Saigon and ramble down the dusty, bouncy roads of the Vietnamese countryside.

Screenshot

Martin Misiak is a science teacher based in Saigon, Vietnam. When not working, he’s traveling, photographing, and denying that he is starting to have too many cameras.

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