Without an H

Flying the flag in Ha Giang City

May 7, 2017

I’ve just come back from a week and a bit in the extraordinary Ha Giang province in the far north of Vietnam. This visit, my second, coincided with a holiday weekend, as Vietnam celebrated both Liberation Day (marking the anniversary of the liberation / fall of Saigon in 1975) and International Labour Day, meaning that streets and houses throughout the region were bedecked with flags. The picture above was taken in the late afternoon one day last week in Ha Giang City. These kids of course couldn’t care less about a war that was over before even their parents were born, and were just happy to be out on their bikes with their friends while the sun was shining. At this point, I could draw some clumsy parallel between Liberation Day and my own circumstances, since I am currently taking some long-term leave from my teaching job in Hanoi. There’s certainly nothing quite like riding a motorbike through the mountain roads of northern Vietnam to make a person feel free. I’m planning to go on more travels and take more photographs over the next couple of months. More pictures from Ha Giang province soon (or soon-ish – it will take me a while to go through all the pictures I took on this trip, but it’s a task I’m looking forward to).

Also while I was away, one of my recent posts from Bangkok was featured on WordPress’s Discover page. It’s always nice when my pictures get some extra attention, so thank you to the good people of WordPress, and welcome to those of you who are new to the blog.