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.
Near Dong Xuan market, Hanoi, yesterday.
I’ve heard it said that women do all the hard work in Vietnam. There may be some truth in that; it certainly seems, sometimes, that men take a more – shall we say – relaxed approach. Here we have a cigarette seller, a repairman and a tailor, all seen hard at work over the last week.
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.
Near Tan Dinh market, yesterday afternoon.
One day I’ll write a blog post that eloquently sums up the joys, disappointments, pleasures and frustrations of living in Saigon. But not today. Instead, here are some pictures taken over a couple of days in December, as I was preparing to come back to the UK for Christmas.
In order to avoid doing my packing this afternoon, I went for a wander with my camera. I’ve not taken that many pictures in Saigon recently – these pictures of the week have tailed off quite a bit – but I’ve taken a few that I like over the last couple of days. Here’s one of them to be going along with. She sells magazines in District 1.
Later today, I’ll be flying home for Christmas and the New Year. I have five weeks in the UK before coming back to Saigon – briefly – in January. After that, I’ll be heading off to the next place, though I’m not entirely sure where that will be yet. First I plan to travel through some other parts of south east Asia for a while. So this is a kind of farewell to Saigon, but maybe not to Vietnam.
Here’s another from the archive, taken in Phnom Penh in January of this year. I should really have included it in this post, as I think they make quite a nice double act.
This is a collection of Saigon street portraits from the last year or so, which I had previously overlooked, or which didn’t fit into earlier posts.
I’ve spent the last week and a bit on holiday with my sister, Kate, who came over from the UK to visit her little brother. We had a great time in Saigon, Dalat and Hanoi before Kate had to head home last night. I have a few pictures to add, but I thought I’d start with Mr Green here, seen this morning in Hanoi.
Without an H 