Author: Steve Barru - Page 64 - Steve Barru Photographs

Market Ladies, Hue, Vietnam

The two women sitting together are selling dragon fruit and yellow daisies (I think) in a local market in Hue, Vietnam. I love their outfits!

Many of the rock formations that protrude out of the water in Halong Bay are laced with caves, some of which are quite large and suitable to walk through. The sunlight coming through the natural windows near the surface made quite a contrast to the darkness and dim colored lighting in the cave.

Halong Bay Tour Boats

Vietnam’s Halong Bay is crowded with tour boats ferrying people back and forth. This is the dock area where groups get on and off the boats to walk through some of Halong Bay’s caves.

Halong Bay, Vietnam

A trip to Halong Bay is, it seems, obligatory if one stays in Hanoi for more than 12 hours. The bay with its stunning rock formations and caves is indeed magnificent and worth a look. I, however, made the mistake of taking a one day tour from Hanoi to Halong Bay. I spent more time in a bus going back and forth than I did at the bay, and once there, visiting the most accessible area, which was literally swamped with tour boats and people. Tours to Halong Bay have become something of a cottage industry in Hanoi. If I had this to do again – and hopefully I will – I will go for two or three days at Halong Bay. Enough time to see more of this gorgeous place and hopefully find parts of the huge bay a bit less traveled.

The view in the photo actually looks away from the rock formations that make the bay famous. In the distance is Halong City, which has become a tourist destination in its own right and is now home to many hotels.

Pipe Break, Hanoi

I returned to Thailand and Chiang Mai three days ago. Normally, the pictures are post are current – where I am and what I am doing at the moment. Not the case now. I have lots of pictures from my travels through Vietnam and I am going to continue posting more of those for the time being.

I saw quite a few of these pipes in Vietnam. Apparently using them to smoke is a longstanding tradition. Lest there is any misunderstanding, that is tobacco the man is smoking.

Flowers on Wheels, Ho Chi Minh City

Portable Business, Ho Chi Minh City

Street Level, Ho Chi Minh City

The woman squatting is selling small snacks. The man is one of the thousands—or more likely, hundreds of thousands—of men sitting on motorbikes waiting to give people rides for a fee all over Saigon. A subset of this group hustle rides for foreigners and the constant solicitations can finally become fairly annoying, especially when a simple no is not enough for many of the drivers. Walking 50 meters involves fighting off multiple requests for rides, shopping, tours, massages, “massages” and lord knows what else. One does not want to be rude, but… Finally, the woman behind the other two has a takeout meal, either for herself or food she is delivering.

Bougainvillea, Ho Chi Minh City

Congestion, Ho Chi Minh City

Ho Chi Minh City is a crowded place, with more than 8 million people and almost as many motorbikes. Everybody drives wildly and getting across streets can be something of an adventure. Hanoi was much the same, though marginally less congested than HCMC. There are still not many private cars in Vietnam. Not only are most people unable to afford cars, the government keeps duties on imported cars very high to prevent, by design one assumes, widespread car ownership. This is probably not a bad thing. One can only imagine what a traffic nightmare HMHC would be if most of the people on motorbikes in this photo were driving cars instead. Think Beijing or Bangkok. It will be interesting to see how Vietnam deals with car ownership as the country develops and its population becomes more affluent over time. In general I know I believe that, with a global population of around 7 billion these days, more than half of whom live in urban areas, we need to be rethinking our commitment to private cars as a way to get around cities.