One of the things I love most about living in Vietnam is that you never know what lies around the next corner. I guess this is true of a lot of places but it seems particularly so here.
Last weekend I encountered a monk on her alm's walk, not such a common sight in Saigon. She was padding down the road in the blazing heat with a sublime smile on her face that said she was a million miles away, and with tears in her eyes.
Related to my last post on crazy things photographers sometimes do, I spotted a team of workers demolishing a building by hand at the weekend. The "human fly" was thirty feet in the air, clinging to or sitting on (ouch) a steel rod while wielding a sledgehammer. His safety gear consisting, once again, of the flip flops on his feet. His workmates watched the show from the ground below. And sometimes I think photography is difficult!
On a recent visit to Hoi An in central Vietnam I happened upon an enterprising young Vietnamese wedding photographer who had decided to take "point of view" FAR too seriously. I spotted him balancing precariously on the edge of a rooftop, 20 feet off the ground, in order to photograph the happy couple canoodling in the alley below. His only safety gear was the pair of flip flops on his feet!
Having broken my ankle in Bangkok late last year making a very forgettable photograph of a street scene, and spending the next two months poking a chopstick down my cast to scratch my leg I figure this one to be not worth the risk. Safety first!
Had a great week of shooting last week. I based myself in Dalat at the supposedly haunted hotel that shall remain nameless, and spent eight hours or so a day bouncing around the back blocks and hills on the back of a motorbike.
Was the hotel indeed haunted? Well I didn't actually SEE a ghost, let alone photograph one, but every light in the room did, inexplicably, turn on at 4am one morning. You should try sleeping with one eye open for a week and see how your sense of humor changes!
The weather was cool, a blessed relief from Saigon, the scenery spine tinglingly spectacular and the people friendly and photogenic.
Most of the villages I photographed in were of the Koho ethnic minority who number about 166,000 of Vietnams total population of 90 million people, thus making them well and truly a minority. They are a good natured and friendly bunch.
Some portraits from the trip are below.
A road worker has a smoke. These guys were carving a road across a mountain, through granite, mostly by hand.
Koho woman.
An 80 year old Koho man "enjoys" a smoke.
Coffee plantation worker.
Coffee plantation workers take a lunch break.
An amazing 94 year old Koho woman.
I'm in Dalat in the Highlands, a six hour drive from Saigon or a 30 minute flight. I opted for the flight.
Dalat has a population of around 200,000 and because of it's location it has rolling hills and lush greenery as well as "seasons". Because of it's elevation it offers some relief from the heat of Saigon. The town is dotted with elegant French colonial villa's and the surrounding countryside is thick with strawberry and flower farms, not rice.
Sadly it has been pouring rain all day today. Tomorrow, fingers crossed, I will be heading into the countryside to photograph some ethnic minority villages so will hopefully have some interesting images to post later in the week.
The motorbike "guides" here are quite famous in Vietnam and are know and Easy Riders. My guy is 60 years old and speaks fluent French and English, so weather permitting I should be in for a few good days of interesting photography.
The hotel I am staying in is supposedly haunted, a fact that I was blissfully unaware of when I booked, so it may make for some interesting nights of sleeping with one eye open!
Later in the week it's back to Saigon to shoot a press conference on Friday for the great local charity KOTO. The guest of honor is Christina Ha, a past winner of Master Chef America who is blind. Christina is in Vietnam to support a fundraiser for the charity the following evening.
Variety is the spice of life.
Vietnam long ago joined the trend of girls being fashionable by getting tattoo's.
Last weekend I was shooting in my favorite alley when I happened upon a typically lovely 18 year old Vietnamese girl, out with her boyfriend, who was devotedly taking photographs of the freshly minted tattoo on her shoulder blade with an iPhone. They asked me to make a photograph, which of course, I did.
The unfortunately bold inscription proclaims "Whenever you decided to do something, never look back!."
I decided not to point out the error, perhaps thus contributing to a spate of grammatically incorrect tattoo's in Saigon.
