Jump to content

The Streets of Vietnam


Recommended Posts

Hi everybody!

 

During Christmas 2014, me and my girlfriend spent three weeks traveling through the northern half of Vietnam. The tour was (unsurprisingly) more or less: Hanoi --> Cat Ba --> Ninh Binh --> Hue --> Hoi An

 

Wait... what? Heard that somewhere before?

 

Well, that's right. This is the second of two "twin threads". Check out the (rather mediocre) landscapes over here.

 

After having a long, hard second look at all the pictures, I decided to make a dedicated thread for the street shots. Normally, I would consider myself more of a landscape photographer, but I have definitely shot far better landscapes with my trusty X-T1 than on this trip. And even after several months back, I still like the documentary-style shots way better than the landscapes. One reason might very well be that with all the heavy-DSLR-lugging tourists everywhere, the X-T1 made me feel rather unobstrusive, so I had no problem getting in close and establishing some sort of contact with the people I shot. Or in some cases - take a few steps back: This was also the trip that made me seriously fall in love with the 35mm-equivalent (which was the XF 23mm 1.4 back then... and which also led to an additional X100T later on... *sigh*).

 

So, let's get this finally started with the...

 

Streets of Hanoi, Part I

 

gallery_3214_124_233698.jpg

 

gallery_3214_124_195377.jpg

 

gallery_3214_124_189476.jpg

 

Make no mistake - If you're not used to Asia, arriving in Hanoi will come to you like a shock. Well, it certainly did for me.

 

The smog made breathing pretty heavy already when we left the airport. The taxi ride into the city gave us a glimpse of the madness that's called traffic which would await us in the Old Town. People keep telling you and they do because it's true: It does take you something like half an hour to cross the street at first. Unless you have a death wish.

 

After half a day, however, I got used to the constant madness, crossing the street became merely a matter of not looking left and right, walking at a constant pace, trusting the motorbikes to drive past you and NOT EVER STOPPING ONCE YOU STARTED WALKING.

 

It's about then when your attention is drawn to all the things that are going on around you at the side of the streets:

 

gallery_3214_124_188760.jpg

 

gallery_3214_124_276808.jpg

 

gallery_3214_124_199794.jpg

 

 

This fairly quickly made me finally fall in love with the city. I don't know how other tourist experiences are, but I felt pretty much unhasseled and safe wherever I went. And the food is absolutely delicious - we pretty much started eating street food right away and never had any issues. Sitting on a plastic chair within all the chaos, scrubbing your spoon and chopsticks clean, eating ridiculously delicious noodles of all varieties, served with fresh herbs you've probably never tasted before (and which you share with pretty much everyone near the food stall) is just a great experience.

 

gallery_3214_124_342473.jpg

 

 

Oh, and did I mention the cà phê sữa? Try the coffee! Drink the coffee! Love the cof... okay, I guess you got it.

Link to post
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...

Thank you, Beginer! If you are living there - have some Bún chả, it's one of my favourite dishes I had in Hanoi. I had the best in the food stall at 43 Hang Buom, but I guess there's plenty more very good ones. Seriously, the food in Vietnam was downright awesome!

 

Anyway, sorry for the delay - time to finally continue.

 

Despite all the madness on the streets, there's also plenty of places where things calm down considerably, giving you the impression of isolated islands of silence within the busy city. That's what I want to show you in part II...

 

Streets of Hanoi, Part II

 

gallery_3214_124_202062.jpg

 

An area where things immediately get a lot more relaxing is the Temple of Literature. It was great to leave the tourist crowds behind while wandering further into the area, picking out some small details, enjoying taking pictures. Great place to be.

 

gallery_3214_124_4302.jpg

 

gallery_3214_124_113568.jpg

 

gallery_3214_124_257782.jpg

 

gallery_3214_124_145633.jpg

 

gallery_3214_124_109856.jpg

 

Another calm (and somewhat eerie) place was the West Lake. It was shrouded in fog the day we've been there, dampening the light and the noises and as such being an interesting change of pace. Yes, there's the pagoda and stuff, and people who really want to sell you some fruit, but all in all it was very soothing just standing there and watching life around (and on) the water.

 

gallery_3214_124_8626.jpg

 

gallery_3214_124_74641.jpg

 

gallery_3214_124_174276.jpg

Link to post
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

  • Similar Content

  • Posts

    • Looking more like the next Fuji camera we see will be an X-T50 but it is still a rumor and no specs have been published.
    • Hey guys, The shutter on/off button switch may be loose on mine. After turning camera on and pressing the shutter/holding close to the area, the camera will turn off and say 'sensor cleaning'. This doesn't happen if I'm shooting via touch screen at all. Everything else is functional. Anyone else experience this before? Would love a much cheaper fix since Fuji Canada just quoted me $700 CAD to fix it, and considering everything else is functional except that part I'm not even sure why MPMB Main Board parts is being replaced😕 I got no explanation from them either.
    • As far as I know the firmware is not country specific. Are you sure that the filename has not been changed ( I am told this can happen with mac os). That's the only thing I can think of.
    • My x-t5 does not exhibit the focusing switch behaviour as you report it, so that is very strange and indicative of a fault. It does not matter whether the flash is attached or not. Once you set the camera for your studio flash, say 1/250th at f5.6, the camera, which is showing you what you will get at that exposure without the flash, will show a black screen unless the ambient light is brighter than what you would typically get indoors. That is why, as Jerry says, you have to set preview exp/wb to off. I have set a button for this.
    • I connected to FRAME.IO a while back and it works fine, but the camera wouldn't connect to the internet all of a sudden today and would get stuck on the reset screen, including initializing and even switching USB Connection mode. Is anyone else experiencing the same thing?
×
×
  • Create New...