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.

Vietnam Beach Scene

Mui Ne is a mellow beach town on the South China Sea about 4-5 hours from Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon). We hired a driver for a 3am night flight out of the city to avoid traffic, and spent the first night at Novella resort, a more upscale option. We intended to stay just 1 […]

The Great Motorcycle Hordes of Saigon

Multitudes of bikes flowing in and out through each other like schools of fish. Somehow it works.

The Dream

I’ve been thinking about it for years, planning, saving, preparing – now it has arrived. 6 months of personal leave from work to devote to other things, travel and creative pursuits. No more alarms, no more commutes – for a while. Just writing, artwork, bike riding, hiking, gardening, reading… The good stuff. Like my DJ […]