A year on the bike, from Massamagrell to Gò Nổi. Follow the line and you have the whole journey: Europe, the Caucasus, the Silk Road and, at the end of it, Vietnam. The dashed stretches are the parts that were not pedalled, such as the Caspian ferry.
19,112 GPS points · 807 steps · 7.02.2025 → 25.12.2025
See the diary and the photographs on Polarsteps
The account of the ride, written once it was over.
On 7 February 2025, Marino Izquierdo Juan left Massamagrell, Valencia, by bicycle. Destination: Vietnam. Twenty-two thousand kilometres ahead of him. In the panniers: donations for Vietnamese hospitals and orphanages, a photograph of his family, his granddaughter’s first dummy and a letter from his father - dead of leukaemia, who had dreamt of that same journey and never made it.
Three months earlier, the DANA flood had destroyed Valencia: two hundred and twenty-nine lives, the Albufera buried under thirty years of sediment in a single day. Marino helped his own people and pedalled north. He was carrying drops of water towards a country that was flooding.
The book is launched in Vietnam in January 2027. Purchase links will be published here.
Gò Nổi means floating land. It is a peninsula in central Vietnam, held by the Thu Bồn river, that floods for months every year. Marino arrived on 25 December 2025. The village received him with flowers, they planted a tree, and the bicycle stayed behind to be auctioned for flood relief.
The bicycle stayed in Gò Nổi. It is being auctioned for the people hit by the floods.
A farmer from Massamagrell. He got back on a bicycle at 54, forty years after quitting.
The ride was for his father, who died of leukaemia. He was a farmer, close to the land, who had dreamt of this same journey and never made it. Marino carried his letter in the panniers for all 321 days. He also did it for his children and his granddaughter, to show them that you do not have to move mountains to enjoy your life.
Vietnam had fascinated him for years: the culture, the food, the way the land is worked. And there were old friends he had not seen in a long time. Arriving at Gò Nổi he understood something else: for a farmer raised twelve kilometres from the Albufera, that landscape looked too much like home to be a coincidence.
Forty years after giving up the sport as a teenager, he got back on a bicycle at 54. It is the slowest way to travel and the most honest: it makes you stop, ask for water, and sleep where you are let in.
From 1 January 2024, every day was a step. He bought the bicycle and the kit and started training. Three months before departure the DANA flood destroyed Valencia: two hundred and twenty-nine lives, and the Albufera buried under thirty years of sediment in a single day. He helped his own, and he left anyway.
The essentials: clothes, washkit, medicine, a phone. And what actually weighed something: a photograph of his family, his granddaughter's first dummy, his father's letter, and donations for Vietnamese hospitals and orphanages.
By his partners and by voluntary donations, on the smallest possible means. The rest was covered by the people he met on the road.
That money helps, but the time you give people is worth more. Every stop that appeared on no itinerary, every unhurried hour given to someone who was not expecting it - that is what lasts. What does not fit in the panniers.
Gò Nổi was not the end. Hospital Vinh Duc, La Goutte d’Eau and the Yêu Gò Nổi Foundation go on working together in Vietnam.
Other projects will be added.
One association only. The funds this drop of water stands for become care for cancer patients in Vietnam, in radiotherapy sessions.
Donate to La Goutte d'EauThe link goes to the association's donation form on HelloAsso. This site collects no money.
Twenty-nine outlets across four countries followed the ride. Vietnam reported it first.
Play the video Bệnh viện Đa khoa Vĩnh Đức, Đà Nẵng đón VĐV Marino đạp xe từ Tây Ban Nha đến Việt Nam
Play the video Full Livestream đón VĐV Marino - Yêu Gò Nổi
Play the video MARINO – HÀNH TRÌNH NHÂN ÁI
Pressing play loads the YouTube player.
Thanks to everyone who held this ride up
Llegar a Vietnam: cuando un sueño personal se convierte en una misión humanitaria. Hoy escribo estas líneas con las manos aún vibrando por el manillar...
En un tiempo donde las noticias suelen girar en torno al conflicto o la indiferencia, historias como la de Marino Izquierdo nos recuerdan que la solidaridad aún puede tomar forma en los gestos más humanos.
Partió con un puñado de pedales y un recuerdo. Marino salió de Valence para recorrer el mundo en bicicleta — miles de kilómetros, decenas de países — con una misión que trasciende el logro deportivo.
In Vietnamese, the word nước means water.
It also means homeland.
They are the same word.
For press, book events, or simply to say something.
marinoizquierdo@hotmail.comFor press: the photographs from the journey are on Polarsteps. Polarsteps
