The colours and patterns in Vietnam

Following my previous post about a long forgotten trip to Laos, below are the photos from the few weeks I spent in Vietnam in 2010. I started out from the hot and humid South, amazed at the variety of food and the number of motorcycles that could fit in Ho Chi Minh City. I continued my way up to the dunes of Mui Ne by the seaside and spent a short while in the lovely tailoring town of Hoi An. It offered me a moment to relax from the few months of “life on the road” and from the nasty illness I had managed to catch somewhere in Laos.

After a short stop in Hue, where I didn’t really seem to find much of interest, I took a long bus ride to Hanoi. I marvelled at the Ha Long Bay, even though I wasn’t blessed with the weather. It was a pity because what must be breathtaking in the sun was kind of grey and gloomy with the clouds. Not to mention that it was really cold and ridiculously crowded with tourists. Still, there was something really beautiful about the karst isles in the misty bay and I guess if you’d go solo and stay the night on an island, you could avoid the hordes of people too.

Next I arrived to the Sa Pa area in the North of Vietnam, a place I had long yearned to see. I went trekking in the villages for a few days, enjoying the breathtaking vistas and the quiet village settings. I loved the clothes the village people were still wearing on a daily basis. The bright colours sown together in intricate patterns and the wide, mysterious landscapes offered some good possibilites for shots, especially the Bac Ha market close to the Chinese border. I really enjoyed taking photos over there.

I have to say that a lot of the area in the close vicinity of Sa Pa has gone quite touristic though, and it was hard to make the same kind of personal contact with the village people that I had been able to make in Myanmar or some places in Laos or even Thailand. It was more about money in this region. But then again, I had also not seen other highland tribe villages in South-East Asia that took their culture with such pride and dignity, even if some of it was for the tourists’ sake. Perhaps a certain amount of reluctance towards foreigners is a good thing if it helps retain the cultural unity of a certain community.

I would go to the North of Vietnam again without a doubt. Next time, however, I would hire a personal guide to take me to more remote spots or get on a motorcycle myself and drive around the area. I would also go at the time of the year when the rice fields are the soft green colour and the weather is a bit warmer. And perhaps I would also connect it to a trip to the Yunnan province in China, where a lot of the tribes that live in Vietnam and in other places in South-East Asia actually originate from. In any case it is worth seeing now rather than later.