Perhaps it’s just me, but when I see a street food seller from this angle, surrounded by baskets and bowls of food, I think of a 70s rock drummer, Neil Peart perhaps, surrounded by an elaborate collection of drums and cymbals. Anyone else see it? Oh, just me then.
Vietnamese markets are hot, noisy, crowded, exhausting places. No wonder these three had escaped to the shade of an alleyway for a sit-down and a chat.
This blog has been a little quiet lately, mostly because I’ve been back home in England (for a little longer than planned) where it’s been too cold, grey and wet to take any photographs. Anyone eager to see pictures of the Sussex countryside in winter will, I’m afraid, have to look elsewhere.
I have, though, dug out some more pictures from my October trip to north-west Vietnam, which I’m posting here.
In other news, I will soon be unleashing my first photobook on an unsuspecting world. It’s a collection of portrait pictures taken in Vietnam over the last year and a bit, titled – unless someone can come up with something better – Portraits of Vietnam. Watch this space for further details, and seriously, please let me know in the comments section below if you have a good idea for a title.
Saturday morning in Can Cau market. Mud underfoot, mist above. Women buy and sell, men smoke and drink rice wine.
Sunday morning in Bac Ha market. Hoped to capture a sense of place, but ended up concentrating mostly on patterns and portraits.
I haven’t taken that many pictures in Saigon recently, but I’m hoping that moving to a new neighbourhood will inspire me. This was taken outside Tan Dinh market on Hai Ba Trung, which I’m expecting will become a regular destination for me in the coming months.
This blog has gained a lot of new followers over the last couple of days, thanks to my ‘Mekong Delta portraits’ post being featured on Freshly Pressed. Welcome everybody and thanks for the support – I hope that you’ll continue enjoying the blog.
After a week in the Mekong Delta in the south of Vietnam, I crossed the border into Cambodia for a slightly different taste of Mekong life, in the riverside towns of Kompong Cham and Kratie, north east of Phnom Penh. One day, I want to travel the length of the Mekong, from southern China all the way down to the delta, with unlimited time and unlimited memory cards. One day. In the meantime, I’ll have to content myself with occasional short trips like this one, in January this year.
Looking at these pictures again today has made me recall some of the other sensations and impressions of the trip that I couldn’t capture on camera: being sunburnt enough to feel a tingle but not so much to hurt; the smell of tobacco plants producing puzzling nostalgic cigarette cravings; long, uncomfortable, oddly enjoyable bus journeys with Khmer pop drowning out the music from my iPod; the pleasant ache in limbs unaccustomed to cycling; happily cancelling out the benefits of said cycling with giant bottles of Angkor beer; confirming my belief that three days in one place is far better than two; unwittingly providing the entertainment by losing my footing in a fishmarket.
Binh Tay market, Cholon, Saigon.
I’ve not taken many pictures lately – I’ve been lacking inspiration since coming back from my Mekong / Cambodia trip in January. I felt like I was on a roll while I was away, but I seem to have hit a slump since getting back to Saigon. Consequently, I’m a bit behind with my Pictures of the Week – this one’s from the week before last.
Water isn’t really my element – I can barely swim – but there’s no getting away from the stuff in the Mekong Delta. I went on a few boat trips during my week there, but taking pictures from a moving boat isn’t easy, especially if you’re a big wuss who’s worried about falling in. The problem with water, a wise man once said, is that it’s wet and it moves around.
The area might be best known for its floating markets, but back on dry land there are plenty of street markets to visit. Wandering around the market in Chau Doc early one morning, I thought to myself, “I could spend all day taking pictures here.” So I did.
My trip coincided with the build-up to the Tet holiday (the Lunar new year, which is the most important holiday in the calendar for Vietnamese people). With two weeks off work, I spent one week travelling through the delta, before taking a boat upriver from Chau Doc into Cambodia for another week. Although I was out of Vietnam for the holiday itself, for weeks before the streets were full of symbols of Tet; red and gold decorations, yellow and orange flowers, and kumquat trees were everywhere.
When I first saw this picture, I thought that a pesky cyclist had ruined a good panning shot. When I saw it again on the big screen, I decided I quite liked it. I’ll just have to pretend that I had it all planned.
Rush hour in Chau Doc is a little quieter than what I’ve become used to in Saigon.
And to finish, a sunset.
(Coming soon: a post or two on Cambodia.)
I’ve just come back from a two week Mekong trip – one week in the Mekong Delta in the south of Vietnam, and one in eastern Cambodia. I have many pictures and memories to sort through, which I can’t quite begin to do yet, as I’m back in Saigon and my brain hurts. So here’s just one to be going on with.
This picture was taken in the floating market in Phong Dien, near Can Tho, the main city of the Mekong Delta.
Back in October last year, I spent ten days in Bangkok, a trip that reignited my enthusiasm for photography. Thanks to the nice people at WordPress, my Bangkok: ten days, one lens post was featured on Freshly Pressed over the Christmas holiday, and I was overwhelmed by the response. A big thank you to everyone who commented on or liked the post, and a warm welcome to everyone who has started following the blog. It means a lot to me to know that there are people out there who like my pictures, and I hope that you’ll enjoy my posts from Vietnam too.
The response to the Bangkok post prompted me to look again at my pictures from that trip. Here’s a selection of shots that didn’t make it last time, not because I don’t like them, but because I don’t think that anyone wants to look at more than about twelve or fifteen pictures at a time (I assume, probably unfairly, that everyone else’s attention span is as short as mine). As before, these are all uncropped shots, taken with a 50mm lens.
I love taking pictures in markets, big or small, indoors or out.
The rush hour in Bangkok seems to last all day. A taxi ride is safer, cooler and more fragrant, but there’s something childishly thrilling about travelling by tuk-tuk.
Buddhas aren’t only found in the wats…
… although they are found there too.
They call him Amulet Man.
Fertility amulets are available in all shapes and sizes.
This monk was sitting in the back of a small truck, sprinkling water on passers by. He was accompanied in the truck by a life size gold statue of himself.
Bangkok’s wats are crammed full of buildings and statues, not to mention people. Rather than taking in the whole scene, I tried to focus on some of the details.
Without an H 