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The Streets of Vietnam

lichtundlaerm

By lichtundlaerm
in Street Photography

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lichtundlaerm Enthusiast

lichtundlaerm

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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

 

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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:

 

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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.

 

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

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  • 2 weeks later...
lichtundlaerm Enthusiast

lichtundlaerm

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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

 

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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.

 

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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.

 

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