Jase Kim

“I can’t say what made me fall in love with Vietnam – that a woman’s voice can drug you; that everything is so intense. The colors, the taste, even the rain… They say whatever you’re looking for, you will find here. They say you come to Vietnam and you understand a lot in a few minutes, but the rest has got to be lived. The smell: that’s the first thing that hits you, promising everything in exchange for your soul. And the heat. Your shirt is straightaway a rag. You can hardly remember your name, or what you came to escape from. But at night, there’s a breeze. The river is beautiful. You could be forgiven for thinking there was no war; that the gunshots were fireworks; that only pleasure matters. A pipe of opium, or the touch of a girl who might tell you she loves you. And then, something happens, as you knew it would. And nothing can ever be the same again.”– Graham Greene, The Quiet American (1955)

Vietnam is a country that teases all five senses.  I anticipated seeing and witnessing some amazing things as well as tasting delicious meals.  But as I sat outside a cafe on my last day in Vietnam writing in my journal, I realized it was the smells and sounds of Vietnam that I came to endear the most.

An excerpt from my journal:

4/3/2014

Last day in Vietnam… I think what I’ll miss the most about walking these streets are the sounds and smells.  The constant honking of horns from cars and motos, the buzz of people speaking a million different languages, the clinking of spoons on glass as people mix up their iced coffees with condensed milk.

The sound of motos turning on, like muffled coughs and throats being cleared.  The droll and monotonous voice recordings blaring from vendors on bikes selling their noodles.  Drivers asking if you need a ride at every corner you turn… the sound of the Vietnamese language as its spoken with a welcoming, heartwarming smile.  “Xin Chao,” you reply, mirroring their smiles as much as possible.

The smells of cigarette smoke (because people don’t treat you like a leper for smoking cigarettes here), pho broth boiling in the morning, grilled pork over charcoal at noon, joss sticks burning, coffee brewing, weeds being scorched in the rice fields (sometimes smelling like cannabis), paper burning on city sidewalks as family members pay tribute to their ancestors.

I’m already look forward to randomly smelling and hearing these things in the future… whether it’s back in the U.S. or some other part of the world or on my next visit back here to this wondrous country.  Smell especially, has that way of instantly taking you back to where you experienced it most fondly (or notoriously).  And I can’t wait until I’m magically transported back here to replay the unforgettable times and the experience I had.

*****

Here are the last few images from Hanoi.

From the Vietnam Military History Museum, where the outside is pretty much a junkyard of American tanks and airplanes captured during the war.

I was randomly walking by Ho Chi Minh’s mausoleum and it was right when they were doing the changing of the guards.  Now that’s some pretty good timing, eh?

Up by the West Lake (Tay Ho)… it’s where the youngin’s go for some private time… with their motos.

Or they jump into one of these and take a pleasant cruise on the lake!My last entry from this trip will be next week when I cover Laos, which was the last leg of my trip.  See you then!

~ Jase

Next on my travel itinerary was Sapa, which is way up in northern Vietnam, near the Chinese border.  It’s a not-so-quick overnight train ride from Hanoi.  It’s home to many ethnic minorities and tribes, but the main part of town looks kind of like a Swiss skiing village, with all the hotels lined up along the mountainside.

It’s a pretty touristy town, and the local Black Hmong villagers take complete advantage of that, trying to sell you “handmade” wares and trinkets, following you around for hours at a time to make a dollar off of you.  Literally, one dollar.  Most travelers (myself included) end up buying the cheapest thing they have so that they finally leave you alone. But then once other hawkers see you buying something from someone, they all run to you and start following you around for another hour.  It sounds more annoying than it is though… you just kind of get used to it and accept it for what it is.  Riding a moto quickly begins to sound like a fantastic idea in this neck of the woods.

It’s weird, in the States, a dollar is like nothing… but in Vietnam, a dollar goes such a long way that you end up feeling bad if you waste a mere 50 cents!  It seems silly, but I found myself feeling ripped off if I thought I was being overcharged by half a dollar.  “Two dollars for a beer?  No way, how about $1.50?” Silly, right?  But it happens to everyone when they visit Vietnam.

All in all though, I loved Sapa.  The moto tour I took overlooking the rice terraces was one of my favorite experiences in my travel through SE Asia.  I don’t really get too excited about nature and scenery, but I found myself so in awe of the vastness of the region and the absolute beauty of the mountainside.  The images of the rice terraces below don’t do it justice in the least bit, unfortunately.  It was for me, a truly breathtaking experience.

Once you make eye contact with a hawker… it’s game over.  Sunglasses are useful in these instances.Quite possibly the cutest little girl in the world.  A fellow American traveler (who I met on the train ride up to Sapa) and I stopped by this little shop for some ice cream while walking Cat Cat Village and she wouldn’t stop laughing and wanting to play with us.  This was the only time she was standing still.A local artist we met, smoking some fresh tobacco with his water pipe.  His paintings were pretty amazing.  Which gets me to think it wasn’t just tobacco in his pipe.The following images were taken at the Sunday Market in Bac Ha, a few hours away from Sapa, where the locals all go to sell their products, whether it’s their crafts, souvenirs, freshly butchered meats, clothes, hardware, what have you.

This was probably the most disappointing part of my trip.  I think there were more tourists than locals at this market, completely saturated by foreigners all up in the locals’ faces.  It really upset me to see people taking photos of the locals as if they were exhibits in a zoo or something.  I began to wonder what, if anything, makes me different from everyone else snapping away with their slr’s and expensive lenses, pretending to be some National Geographic photographer documenting something exotic and native.  Sure, I’m a bit (a lot) more discreet about taking photos than most, but was that it?

I had to eventually put my camera away, because at that point, I felt really exploitative, as if I was adding to the zoo exhibit mentality.  And for me, it gets tiresome when you’re simply capturing images that everyone else is also photographing.

I ultimately decided to turn the camera around and started taking photos of tourists, most of whom gave me strange looks and stares, obviously lacking any self awareness and irony of the matter.  After a couple of hours, I couldn’t wait to get back to Sapa.  As touristy as Sapa may be, it was no where near the assembly line of cameras that Bac Ha Market had.

Back to Sapa and its beautiful sunsets…And sunrises…And its spectacular rice terraces that go on for miles and miles and miles.  Mental note to come back here in September during harvesting season, where everything is more plush, green and alive.My moto guide and I stopped on a mountaintop, looking over the entire region, and he murmured “Harmony.”  It was the perfect word to capture the magnificence of the scenery.  There’s no crime, neighbors help each other out, money doesn’t rule their world, the weather is spectacular, the views never get old, and no Justin Bieber on their radios. Harmony.Don’t ask me how they got there, but there are eels that live in the waters that seep through the rice terraces.  Local kids spend their afternoons fishing for them and sell them to passers by on the roadside.  Probably for a dollar a bottle.My cab ride to Lao Cai train station for my overnight trip back to Hanoi, I encountered the thickest fog I’ve ever seen with my own eyes.  I literally couldn’t see five feet ahead of me, and I don’t use the term “literally” in a figurative sense.  It was quite a scary experience, since the roads in Sapa are pretty narrow to begin with and also hug the mountainside with nary a rail guard that wouldn’t even be able to save a bicyclist, let along a two ton SUV.  Add the fact that most people in Vietnam don’t really follow traffic laws, and you’ve got the formula for something tragic.

But out of the fog in the oncoming lane, there appeared a herd of water buffalo with a little Hmong girl riding atop one of them, guiding them up the hill.  I wanted desperately to ask the cabbie to pull over so I could jump out and take a photo of that.  It was truly a magical looking scene, as long as you could see it in the thick fog.  But I think caution and common sense got the better of me, as I didn’t think it was the safest thing in the world for a car to pull over in those conditions, let alone me running around the narrow road to get the shot.

But I knew it would bother me for the rest of my life (I’m not being melodramatic at all!) because that could’ve been THE SHOT of my trip.  Every photographer has a tale of the shot they didn’t take.  Well, that’s mine.  I could still picture it in my head.  Ugh.

Anyways, it would’ve been a pretty sweet shot.  But I can only tell about it, rather than showing it, unfortunately.  You live and learn, I suppose.  “Live” being the keyword.

Next up, some final images from Hanoi along with my written takeaway of the amazing country and then finally some images from my time in sleepy yet stormy Luang Prabang, Laos.

So until next time, I’ll be thinking of the shot that could’ve been.  =(

~Jase