I’m very happy to be guest host of the Weekly Photo Challenge on wordpress.com this week, presenting the theme of everyday life. Street food is very much a feature of everyday life here in Saigon; this lady runs a banh xeo (crispy pancakes filled with bean sprouts and stuff) stall in District 3.
“So far away from those tree-lined streets,
Look so neat,
Not for us,
No, fat chance,
We’re the mountain people.”
(Mountain People, Super Furry Animals)
This is my final set of pictures from my July trip to Dalat and the central highlands.
This sharply-dressed gent was watching the world go by outside his family’s home furnishings store. He is, according to his neighbour, one hundred years old. Anyone who reaches that age is going to have seen a lot in their life, but I think that’s especially true of someone who reaches that age in Vietnam.
It’s about a month now since I got back from my week in Dalat and the central highlands. I was so pleased with the pictures that I took on that trip that I’ve found myself reluctant to go out shooting since I got back, for fear that the pictures won’t be as good. Clearly, I need to have a word with myself. In the meantime, here are a few shots from my Saigon neighbourhood which were taken at the beginning of July.
If last week’s post was all about the country, then this week’s is all about the town. I wrote before about how Dalat doesn’t feel like anywhere else in Vietnam, and I hope that these pictures capture some of that unique character.
One of the things I like best about living in the city is leaving it every now and then to spend a few days in the country. A week in the central highlands around Dalat gave me the chance to breathe some clean air and try my hand at some landscape photography, neither of which I get to do very often. I took a couple of motorbike trips with one of the Dalat Easy Riders, Mr. Thanh (aka Joseph), who did a far better job of negotiating hairpin bends and avoiding oncoming trucks than I ever could have. As a passenger, I could concentrate on looking at one spectacular view after another. Impressive as those views were, the people we encountered in the villages, fields and markets were even more memorable. These pictures are taken from those two motorbike trips, and were taken in the area around Dalat, and on the road to Ho Lak (Lak lake).
I’ll be posting some more pictures from my trip to Dalat and the central highands soon. In the meantime, here’s a man and some bananas.
It’s been a very wet week – even when it wasn’t raining, it felt like it was about to start – but I found a little time during a sunny interlude late on Tuesday afternoon to take a walk round the block and shoot a few pictures.
Later today I’m heading up to Dalat for a week of mountain air and cooler temperatures. I plan to spend the week walking, reading, napping and taking photographs, probably black and white photographs, as that’s what’s interesting me at the moment.
It’s raining at Wimbledon, so here’s a bonus picture of the week.
Taken outside one of the many wedding dress shops on 3 Thang 2 street, District 10.
Without an H 