Vietnam Pics For Those Still Paying Attention

I know we probably lost some (most?) of you when we returned home last week, but I'm a glutton for self-punishment, and I believe in closure, so before I share some post-trip thoughts, I'm opening the floodgates with long-promised photos from Vietnam. Look at it this way--if it were 20 years ago, you'd have to come over and sit on our couch for hours while I fumbled with trays of slides and a projector that didn't work.

This young Mekong Delta resident clearly hadn't seen a twistable crayon before. That, or he really likes the taste of plastic.


Hard to resist a face this animated. This woman stopped to talk to our Mekong Delta guide, Nhi.


This family has been making (and wrapping) coconut candy for generations. They're probably also the most photographed coconut candy-makers on Earth.


One of the most common sites at mid-day throughout Southeast Asia is that of unaccompanied children making their way home from school. These two were skipping their way down a walkway near Vinh Long in the Mekong Delta.

I have a weakness for ordinary slice-of-life scenes spotted from river boats. I caught this woman pouring a bucket of water into a Mekong River channel near Vinh Long.

Another Mekong moment--not sure about the video sign. If they rent movies here, they must not do much business, as very few homes in the delta region have televisions, much less DVD players.


The woman in this photo seemed to enjoy being a photo subject. Her counterpart, not so much.


Man, those schnitzengrubens--uh, I mean the Mekong humidity--can really wipe you out. (Apologies to Mel Brooks for the gratuitous Blazing Saddles reference.)


Classic moment caught in the particularly unsanitary Vinh Long marketplace--a woman sleeps amid the colorful assortment of vegetables she was supposed to be peddling.


Ah, paradise--this was our idyllic bungalow on the tranquil island of Phu Quoc, where we spent three of our favorite days.


Sarah has a pretty good photographic eye, too--as deomonstrated by this artistic shot of our flip flops, and the bucket of water we used to clean our sandy feet after lounging on our private Phu Quoc beach.


Sunsets were definitely a highlight of our stay on Phu Quoc--this one was taken from the sitting area of the Mango Bay Resort's open air restaurant.

The second of our three sunsets on Phu Quoc was the most spectacular. The orange glow grew more brilliant with each passing moment, and the silhouetted boats on the horizon add a distinctly Southeast Asian touch.

There are always rewards for venturing out on your own and leaving the comfort of your beach resort. Our outing on a rented motorbike enabled us to take in the colorful view of the harbor in Duong Dong (pronounced sort of like Zheng Ndeng, not that one can do justice to Vietnamese tonal pronunciation) town on Phu Quoc.


After reaching the opposite side of Phu Quoc via our motorbike, we came across these fishermen untangling their nets.


It's a good thing for U.S.-Vietnam relations that the Phu Quoc locals didn't see this obnoxious American couple engaging in some disturbing hi-jinks on a secluded beach. "Look at that American woman giving birth to a small bearded man!"


The downside of renting your own motorbike on an island that depends on mostly dirt roads--Sarah waits for a mechanic to fix our flat tire. Amazingly, the flat delayed us only about 10 minutes, and the repair costs us a whole $3, including the new inner tube.


The lighting cast by our last sunset on Phu Quoc was too unusual not to use the timer to catch this moody photo of the happy couple.


The general manager at Mango Bay told us that he'd somehow still been unable to get a good beach photo for the resort's web site, so I gladly took this shot in exchange for a free t-shirt--which I naturally left in our bungalow.


At the end of a long and drunken night of French food and revelry in Saigon's famous Dong Khoi district, Sarah and I show off the new custom duds we had made for us by a local clothing designer.


A plane trip and overnight train ride from Saigon later, Sarah is accosted by Hmong peddlers as we make our way through the market in Sapa, in the mountains of Northwest Vietnam.


The contrast of this photo didn't cooperate, but who could resist the juxtaposition of a solitary woman working on her craft while two pigs fornicate just a few feet away?


I wish I'd have gotten as good a shot of this old Hmong woman's face as I did of her hands--not that anything could have been more colorful. (The blue is from the native indigo plants they use to dye their garments.)


Holy crap, Hmong children are cute.


This Hmong peddler was particularly persistent. Sarah was about to buy an usual necklace from her until she noticed that a little bell was missing. The next day, this same woman miraculous spotted us on the street to show us that she'd fixed it, and naturally we couldn't help but complete the purchase. Note the way she uses her toes to hold the thread.


What I said about Hmong children above goes double for these two. The girl here demanded that I buy one of her bracelets in exchange for this photo. It was absolutely worth the 20,000 dong (about $1.20).


I can't possibly say enough about Ca, the 12-year-old Hmong girl who walked with us for much of the morning on our second day of trekking near Sapa. The youngest of three children, she faces a life of hard tribal tasks and caring for her parents and grandparents while her older siblings attend school in Sapa and Hanoi. And yet she smiles like she has everything one could want.


A Hmong man ushers his little one across one of the many rickety--and totally entertaining--bridges we crossed during our Sapa treks.

Our wonderful and warm Hmong guide, Maos, got these girls to pose with her for a photo. She seemed to know everyone we passed. (Incidentally, I'm guessing at the spelling of Maos' name, as she doesn't read or write, and the Hmong still don't keep written birth records.)


One of the many characters we encountered (and who were peddling their wares) during our Sapa treks.


Talk about your local color--this 89-year-old woman brought us tea when we stopped at her guest house for a brief break from our Sapa trek. Maos stays in the house with the clients she takes on 3-day treks, which Sarah and I both wished we could have taken the time to do.


An obligatory photo of the admittedly beautiful seascape of Halong Bay--a beauty, I might add, that is completely overwhelmed by the Disneyfied way in which they shuttle too many tourists through the overly structured sightseeing itinerary.


The best part of our Halong Bay mini-trip was, without a doubt, meeting our two awesome new friends, Spyros and Alyssa, whom we hope to one day visit in their home city of Rome.


Near the end of our trip, a woman in the old quarter of Hanoi suddenly placed her load on Sarah's shoulder, lending additional authenticity to Sarah's fast-developing Southeast Asian style. Naturally, I felt obligated to buy one of the woman's bags of pineapple--which, incidentally, Sarah wouldn't touch but turned out to be the best fruit I tasted on our entire trip.


I love the vibrancy of street scenes such as this one I caught in Hanoi's old quarter, where the streets are named after the items that at one time were exclusively sold on them. (This practice has given way as the area has evolved into a tourist mecca filled with kitschy gifts, of which we bought way more than our share.) This photo is a perfect end to our show-and-tell, as my memories of the trip will be filled with such images.