Angkor

At the heart of the Khmer empire lies an astounding accretion of monolithic temples. The scale of Angkor is mind-binding… It is difficult to imagine how it was accomplished. As grand as the Egyptian pyramids yet more complex and ornate, the structures are coated in bas reliefs of man, gods and entities in between. You […]

Down the Mekong

Phnom Penh

Fish flops out of a basket in a market stall, never to see the sea again. Pails of curried locust, platters of candied spider… Wild black dogs with an unassailable wisdom of these streets. Many old whites have washed up on the shores of the Mekong, 18 year old Cambodian girls by their side. They […]

Kampuchea

Smoke rising out of the jungle, houses on stilts. Where are we? Ornate village temples, palm trees poking here and there out of lowland fields. Moving from Vietnam into Cambodia there is less Chinese influence and more Indian. The land opening up, less people and more cattle. This is a heavy place, something about it.. […]

Saigon sunrise

Saigon wakes up early: the streets are bustling by 6 am. A large downtown park sees many people out for morning walks and calisthenics. It gets so hot here that early morning is a comfortable time to be out and about.

Trashed

This website is called The Selfcleaning World, but it’s going to take the world a long time to clean Vietnam. I don’t see much evidence of organized garbage collection, a lot of it ending up in ditches, fields and waterways. It gets worse in rural areas. Seems slightly apocalyptic.

Vietnam street barbecue

Papa he grill the pork and mama she assemble the plate. Voila, Vietnam streetside BBQ.

Propaganda

Communism is alive in Vietnam. I dig the old-school commie fashion sense, red and yellow on olive green, a look going back to revolutionary Russia. Propaganda speaks for itself.

Desert microenvironments

Near Mui Ne are areas of red and white dunes rising dramatically out of the countryside. I haven’t researched how they were formed, but they were fun to explore. At Fairy Spring we followed an ankle-deep stream for kilometers, red dunes and eroded features on one side contrasting with green jungle on the other.

Fishing village and market

This is the harbour in Mui Ne where thousands of boats bring in the bounty of the sea. At night you can see lights strung out on the horizon, like stars fallen from the sky: squid fishers. They eat land creatures too – crocodile is popular.