PixelatedImage Blog

Hello from Ha Noi, Viet Nam. Wish y’all were here.

If the calendar is to be believed I have two more days here before I begin the homeward journey via Seoul and San Francisco. I’ll later be doing some reports about the trip and the places I’ve been so I’ll keep this short. Just wanted to drop a line. We’re just back from Sapa, took the night train to the chinese border then a mini bus into the mountains to the “village of Sapa,” a place which has long lost its cool and is now filled to bursting with tourists and lovely montagnards now dependant on tourism and reduced to selling their wares in a sing-song “you buy from me?” voice that sounds dangerously close to whining. In all it was disappointing, and on top of that I battled a cold and then got desperately ill one evening. But the fog that rolled in was spectacular and, though it frustrated my efforts to do some nice mountainscapes, was fun in another way. Each place presents its own challenges, defies you to leave with your expectations intact and is another step on the journey to finding your photographic vision. I suspect if I had a week or two to linger in Sapa, to get well out of town and into the smaller villages, and time to wait for the light, Sapa and I would have got along so much better. As it is we’re not talking.

Hope y’all are well. See you again most likely in Vancouver when I start writing more frequently.