On my first day in Vietnam we traveled down to the Mekong Delta to take in the floating markets. We wound up on a boat tour early the next day. This included a stop at a place where they made rice paper. Here, you can see the freshly cooked rice paper laid out to dry in the sun.
Long day at work, so quick post… here’s the other bicycle I waited ages for while on the Japanese Covered Bridge in Hoi An.
So, I’m back from my trip to Marrakech, London and Amsterdam. I went on an awesome food tour in Marrakech I’m looking forward to telling you about. For now though, we’ve got another picture from Vietnam. This is the view from inside the Japanese covered bridge in Hoi An. I waited ages to catch a bike passing across the far end.
A wander through the market always yields interesting sights, such as this lady selling a huge pile of yellow flowers.
On this day we went in search of what our guide book described as a local delicacy, tiny preserved tangerines. We were supposed to find them in amongst all the woven baskets inside the market building. We wandered through without having much luck. We were being mobbed by locals asking what we were looking for, making it difficult to scan the stalls for the little delights. Eventually, Shannon decided to try to explain what we were after. She was less than successful in this endeavor, but it took the attention off me and I was able to scan a stall carefully. Then, I saw a plastic jar, tucked in amongst everything else, full of gooey little orange spheres. I knew I had the right thing when I noticed the picture of tangerines on the label.
The lady gestured that I should open the jar. Upon doing that, I was hit by a strong citrus smell. They smelled delicious and I was instructed to taste one. At this point, things took a turn for the worse. They were horrible, bitter, chewy things smothered in a sickeningly sweet gloop. After the ladies hospitality we wanted to buy something, but we did not want a jar of those tangerines! Eventually, we remembered some delicious coconut cracker things we’d wanted to buy. The lady didn’t have any but quickly ran off somewhere, returning with a whole case. They became our long distance bus journey snack of choice.
This is a giant replica of one of the emperor’s seals. It’s on display in the Forbidden Purple City in Hue. They had a number of regular sized replicas on display in a side room. I didn’t feel as compelled to photograph them.
It was a treacherous walk on a rainy afternoon to Nuoc Moc’s swimming hole, but our stomachs were full. We’d arrived at the nature walk of Nuoc Moc, between the Dark Cave and Paradise Cave, in the stunning Karst mountains of Phong Nha Ke Bang, to discover a typically gracious Vietnamese woman who offered us lunch. We agreed and were treated to a plate of steamed broken rice topped with fried chicken, tofu, delicious string beans, and a fried egg. It’s a simple meal, but after liberal application of soy sauce and chili, it was delicious.
With full stomach’s, we accepted that the light drizzle was not going to let up. We donned our rain gear, waterproofed our bags and set off to visit the Nuoc Moc swimming hole. To get there, you have to cross a number of fast flowing rivers via rickety bamboo bridges like the one you can see below. The rain made them slippery, but they seemed sturdy enough that if you wound up in the water it would be entirely due to operator error.
On the way back I asked my travel buddy to take a picture as I carried my gear across. She walked up to where I stood on the bridge to take my Iphone, photo mode ready. However, you’ll notice there’s no picture of me tentatively carrying my gear across a slippery, bamboo bridge. That’s because, when she reached me, the bridge decided to drop what felt like meters, but was probably more like inches. This warning was well heeded and, after freezing in shock briefly, we removed ourselves from the structure at great haste.
I’ve never been good at photographing people in my travels so made a conscious effort to do this more in Vietnam. When I saw this girl in Hoi An I had to push the limits of my camera to get this picture.
She’s selling lanterns for people to float down the river during Hoi An’s full moon festival. We didn’t have a set plan for most of our journey around Vietnam, but made sure we were going to be in Hoi An for the festival. Funnily, I think I preferred the place when the festival wasn’t on but it’s definitely something worth seeing. They turn off all of the electric lights in the city so the only light available is from lanterns strung up around the streets. There are loads of people around, tourists mixing in with the various local vendors. There’s so much going on that as you approach the water it’s a bit disorienting at first. Lanterns are thrust in front of you in the hope you’ll buy and your eyes struggle to switch between the intensely bright flames and the dark city streets. Eventually though, you make your way to the river where everything calms down and you can watch the lanterns, released from the bridge, slowly drift away.
So I mentioned that I’d been to Vietnam last year but didn’t say much more about it. It was an amazing trip and I already want to go back. We started our trip down South in Ho Chi Minh City (formally, and still to some extent, Saigon). From there we spent a couple of nights in the Mekong Delta, before heading North towards Hanoi. On the way there we stopped off in Hoi An for the full moon festival, Hue for the imperial city, and Phong Nha for the caves and national park. Up in the North we split our time between Hanoi, Cat Ba Island and Sa Pa. As a result, I have a lot of photos to get through and share with you.
Today’s photo is from the Purple Forbidden City, which is located inside the imperial city in Hue. It’s a huge complex modeled on the Chinese Forbidden City.
Happy New Year everyone. So, last year’s attempt to post a photo every day fell flat about half way through. I didn’t do a lot of traveling in early 2014, and when I did it was because I got to go to the World Cup in Brazil. There was too much distraction at that time for me to take a lot of pictures!
In November I finally got to set foot in Asia with a three week holiday in Vietnam. I now have a fairly sizable stock of photos to show you!
This first one is of Hoi An, an ancient trading port on Vietnam’s coast, known for the abundance of tailors and original French colonial architecture.
