Vietnamese man rowed a canoe for 18 days at sea to go to India to meet his wife

During 18 days floating at sea by rubber boat to go to India to get married, Mr. Hung only ate raw shrimp noodles, drank filtered water brought with him to hold his breath.

The strange journey of a short, thin man with dyed blond hair. He has a friendly smile and a gentle way of talking. He said his name is Ho Hoang Hung, 37 years old.

Previously, the Bangkok Post reported that on March 23, the Thai Navy rescued a Vietnamese man rowing a rubber boat with the intention of going to India to get married. The man above is Mr. Ho Hoang Hung.

Mr. Hung asserted that he crossed the sea to go to India. Here, someone will support him to go to England to marry the girl he has known before.

Hung flew to Bangkok (Thailand) on March 2. Then he took a bus from the country's capital to Phuket. Here, Mr. Hung bought a rubber boat and about 60 packages of instant noodles and 6-7 bottles of filtered water.

On March 5, Mr. Hung started his journey across the sea after loading his luggage including some clothes, instant noodles and drinking water on a small rubber boat. He pushed the canoe out to sea and tried to row in the direction of the sun.

On the first day, he and his boat drifted from the mainland to a strange island in the middle of the sea and then stuck here for 3 days straight. He said that there are whirlpools around the island, so even if he tried to paddle away, he was still swept back to his old position by the current.

On the fourth day, he tried to swim in a different direction, but "the next morning, when I woke up, I could no longer see the dark green of the island". With no map, no seafaring experience, he found his own way by "swimming in the direction of the sunrise during the day, swimming in the direction of the moon at night".

Continuous exposure to the hot sun made Mr. Hung thin and black. Even the parts of the body that do not have a shirt or pants to cover are exposed to sunlight and sea water causing blisters and cracks. To this day, those wounds have not yet healed.

He said: "Walking like that, I didn't feel scared or tired at all. When I was hungry, I ate instant noodles and drank water. During 18 days at sea, I kept eating like that. Before that, I practiced If you eat like that, you won't have a problem when you go to the sea."

He also affirmed that in the days when he crossed the ocean on a rubber boat, he many times encountered big waves, high winds, even facing fierce storms in the middle of the sea. However, he and the boat have not been overturned or sunk by the waves.

Surprise ending

Initially, Mr. Hung planned to swim in a rubber boat across the sea to India within 20 days. However, on the 18th day, he decided to end the journey because he could not get where he wanted to go.

He said: "After going for ten days, I checked again and saw that the instant noodles and drinking water were about to run out. Meanwhile, I still saw the Thai flag hanging on the big ships. I thought, that's me. not yet out of Thailand".

"With the remaining food and water, I don't think I have enough strength to cross the sea, so I try to ask the fishing boats of your country for help. I try to get support from fishing boats and boats by saying: "Help me" (roughly translated: Please help me)", he added.

Some ships and fishing boats, when receiving a signal to ask for help from him, refused, did not help. The people on the boat clasped their arms together to form an X, signaling that they could not help.

He said that they thought he was a smuggler, carrying prohibited goods or illegally crossing the border, so they did not dare to help for fear of being implicated. However, he kept saying the English sentence: "Help me please". Finally, he was approached by a fishing boat.

This fishing boat reported the discovery of Mr. Hung's rubber boat at sea to the Thai Navy. "About 15 minutes later, I saw a Thai Navy ship coming. They searched me. When they saw that I was safe, they took me to the island to recover," he said.

After that, Mr. Hung was brought to the mainland in Thailand. He didn't remember where in the country he was taken. He just remembers being well taken care of in the hospital.

Here, after having all the documents, he was sponsored by a benefactor for a plane ticket to fly from Thailand to Tan Son Nhat airport (HCMC). Arriving in Ho Chi Minh City, Mr. Hung took a bus and then took another motorbike taxi to go home to Can Duoc district, Long An province.

Mr. Long, Hung's father, said he had never heard of his son marrying a foreign girl. The fact that his son went abroad, and then sailed a rubber boat across the sea, he and his family did not know. Only when the press reported it, he was very good and bewildered.

"Hung kept going back and forth. He went abroad many times and then came back, so we didn't know where he went or what he did. When it was reported by the press that he went by airboat to the sea to go to India, his family and his family. I am very worried. Now that it has returned healthy, we are very happy", Mr. Long shared.

Vo Thanh Cu, Secretary and Head of Hamlet 1B, Tan Trach Commune, Can Duoc District, Long An Province said that Mr. Hung is a local. However, he constantly goes out of the locality and abroad.

"In particular, Mr. Hung has some unusual words and actions, but he has no papers related to mental illness. While present, living in the locality, Mr. Hung still gets along with everyone. The fact that this guy swims in a rubber boat across the sea also surprised me," said Mr. Cu.

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