They left Vietnam as babies. Fifty years later, they returned to search for their biological parents.
In a journey more than a decade in the making, thirteen adoptees — most from Australia — and their families cycled 284km over four days in April from the capital Ho Chi Minh City to Sóc Trăng in the far south.
Organiser Sue-Yen Luiten said: "Since 2015 — the 40th year of the end of the Vietnam War — it became evident that we as adoptees or children separated from our birth families due to the war, were ."
"We're looking for our mothers, but we're also looking for fathers, uncles, aunties, siblings.
"Anyone that might have a history of missing someone from their family that may have left the country."
The Celebrating Viet Nam Mothers bike ride was Luiten's brainchild — she was adopted from Vietnam in 1974 at just four weeks old, growing up in Western Australia.
"Having ridden through the Mekong, maybe for the first time, a lot of adoptees have had that one-to-one interaction with the community outside of a taxi or a tour bus," Luiten said.
"That really does make you think … have I just ridden past my mother or my father along the path?"
With the help of local organisations, the group visited villages along the Mekong Delta, providing care packages of rice and oil to elderly residents and speaking to them about adoptees searching for their families.
Event attendee and Vietnamese adoptee Kim Catford said: "Sue had a dream of wanting to do a bike ride through Vietnam to reach out to vulnerable families so we could give out care packages."
"And to provide DNA kits for mothers that were separated from their children prior to 1975, during that American War period."
Adoptees cycling through villages in the Mekong Delta in southern Vietnam, raising awareness of their ongoing search for their biological families. Source: Supplied
Of 3,000 children airlifted out of Vietnam in April 1975, some 281 found a new life — and family — in Australia.
"I genuinely felt like the locals were saying: 'Welcome back'," Williams said.
"One of the mothers stood up in front of all the others, she'd have to be in the 70s, and she said in Vietnamese: 'Welcome back to your home country', and I thought that was just the most beautiful thing.
"It brought a tear to everyone's eye. And made us think, we have got a connection, whether we get a DNA match or not."
DNA testing key
Catford, who was adopted by South Australian parents in 1974, knows firsthand the power of DNA testing.
Although his search for his Vietnamese mother continues, DNA helped uncover his paternal family.
"All my life I was told I'm mixed race, thinking my father probably was an American soldier," Catford said.
"I did the DNA test and to my surprise I was 45 per cent Danish. The even bigger surprise was having close matches."
The group delivered care packages and spoke to communities in southern Vietnam. Source: Supplied
Through DNA, he was able to meet his extended biological family in Denmark.
"They put on the most beautiful reunion for me and my wife and we went there last year," he said. "Aunties, uncles, cousins, second cousins ... I've even got a half-sister who lives in France."
Catford and Luiten say DNA testing is a game-changer for Vietnamese adoptees.
They said many adoptees are mixed race, many have inaccurate or incomplete birth records, and some have faced painful experiences bonding with people they believed were their parents, only to later discover they were not.
Luiten said there are also cultural sensitivities and privacy concerns to navigate in providing kits to Vietnamese locals.
"I have a duty of care of making sure that I'm not putting them in danger by asking them to step forward," she said.
"Making sure they understand what it means to do a DNA search. It took me years to understand the risks around DNA.
"But for adoptees, there's no choice. DNA has to be a baseline decoder of our biological relationships."
Kim Catford (centre) met his extended family and a half-sister in Denmark last year. Source: Supplied
"When I went to the village where I thought I was born, I told someone on the side of the road, 'This is where I'm born', and they would go and find the oldest person in the village and ask them," he said.
"There's real deep sort of care for us and I think they really get the story because it was during that time there were so many orphans, many fathered by soldiers, and we were all sent to different parts of the world."
Organiser and adoptee Sue-Yen Luiten spoke to community members about their search for family and DNA testing during their journey. Source: Supplied
Healing journeys and new bonds
Williams, who started to delve into his past relatively recently, said the reunion and bike ride were incredibly cathartic.
"It allowed me to actually talk about it, whereas in the past I hadn't talked a lot about my past and my adoption," he said.
Williams said he first wrote about his experience in a children's book But What Are You?, a story of a boy who gets sent from Vietnam to Australia in a cardboard box.
He later transformed the story into a play called Fragile: Handle With Care, about Operation Babylift, which has been staged at the Edinburgh Fringe and, more recently, the Adelaide Fringe Festival.
Through the process, Williams met Catford and Luiten and years later decided to participate in the bike ride with them.
Having both grown up in Adelaide, Williams said he and Catford formed a strong bond through their similar upbringings.
"We just connected straight away, and he felt like a genuine brother to me," he said.
"Being around other adoptees ... we all just got each other and didn't have to explain anything, because people knew what you're going through and the emotions that you're going through."
(Left to right) Barton Williams, Sue-Yen Luiten and Kim Catford during their four-day bike ride from Ho Chi Minh City to Sóc Trăng. Source: Supplied
"Riding a bike was a really cathartic way to exercise and exorcise those sorts of feelings," she said.
"The literal physicality of processing and smelling things and seeing things and riding in your own thoughts and then having someone or other adoptees so close to be able to just turn around and have those conversations.
"Collectively, that was really special. There was a connection to the country in lieu of being able to find any more details or facts."
Luiten, Catford, and Williams all say the experience has transformed them, bringing them peace regardless of whether they find their own families.
They're also hopeful their work may uncover answers for the thousands of other adoptees around the world.
