A passenger reclined on the techno bus going back to Ho Chi Minh.


The bus stops occassionally for restroom stops where you can get snacks from food carts.



My uncle escorted me back to my mom's hometown in a province called Quy Nhon.  We took the bus there, which allowed for sleeping accommodations.  The seats recline back so that you have ample leg room if you're about 5ft 2", a typical Vietnamese height.  However, I dont believe it would meet the typical safety regulations in the U.S.   If the bus were to crash, you would pretty much be squashed, especially your legs, but hopefully you were nicely relaxed and reclined before the inertia of a crash would send you to your impending doom.  Its like a bunch of bunk beds stacked into a bus, and if you surrender to the circumstance, it almost feels like a moving sleepover party equipped with black light (I'm not kidding) and the ever so catchy techno music background that makes you reminiscent of the old rave days where you did find yourself in odd situations with an eccentric group of strange but familiar people you've never met before.

Three boys strolling and chatting on their way to school.

Vietnam seems to be a mixture of the old and new.  It is still a country that maintains traditional values especially when it comes to family life, but it also welcomes the progression of new ways and ideas.

Marketplace

The hustling at the marketplace can be very competitive.



An older lady selling fresh produce at the marketplace.

 
The Vietnamese marketplace is an intense experience for your senses.  The visuals, the smells, and the sounds really gives you a glimpse of what the human universe would be if you were to compress it.  The smell of fresh fruit mixed with the smells of roasting soups, moms and daughters haggling over prices, the cordial butcher, the wise herbsman, the beautiful flowershop girl, and the jaded greeting card seller all provide an array of the different plights of human kind.



Breakfast

My cousin took me down the street today to get some breakfast.  We had a dish called mi quang which was amazing.  My noodles were perfectly soft and subtle, while the flavors were a delicious blend of different textures and spices.

Mornings in Ho Chi Minh

 This is the view of the window in my room at about 5 in the morning.  You can really see the thickness of the humidity here.

I slowly wake up to the sounds of the rooster’s morning chant and the occasional merchants that sing their breakfast menus like traditional Vietnamese operas. The hummings of motorbikes that whiz by provides a nice bass for the rhythmic sounds that echo down below in the alleyways. This is the nostalgia I was longing for. There’s something special about listening to the early buzz of the day that is about to unfold. You come to the realization that you will play a role in the whole orchestra and things will somehow connect beautifully.

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Just Starting Out

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This feels a bit strange sharing personal thoughts and such, I usually like to keep this to myself or within intimate conversations with close friends.  I admit I do have this fear of documenting myself either within text or through pics.  I feel safe with anonymity because "being nothing" allows you the freedom to do anything. Its kinda like air..you never think about it, but its there, and you're never quite aware of what its actually doing.
 So here I am maybe messing with this whole formula I've been  practicing, just to to see what happens.  Plus I'm using this as a thought organizer, because when you write its like putting a puzzle together, with all these random thoughts scattered about, its maybe good to put it together to see what it all means. 
I’m also motivated to do this because when I try to recall my last trip to Vietnam, there just seemed to be a random series of different memories associated with varying degrees of feeling good or feeling not so good.  And of course they were also those moments of rare insights, but I could never quite depict the story of reaching that point.  So anytime somebody asks me, “How was the trip?”  Usually, I tend to draw a blank and then I just dig up any story that pops up and tell it very curtly.  I’m never prepared.  Its like if you ask a kid real quick whats in his pocket. If he’s anything like me, he’s not gonna find the best piece, he’ll just pick out whatever his fingers clutches on first. So I figure that maybe by journaling the thoughts and stories coupled with my photographs, I’ll give you the best piece that I’ve got.