Old & new

During our trip through Vietnam I really had the impression that what we saw was genuine, and not part of an artificially created 'tourist attraction'. However, at the same time we realized, that this will probably not stay like this, as we could feel the growing influence of the west: Versace shops in the cities and announcements for Hilton hotels along the cost indicated that the countrie's charme might soon be spoiled by the influence of western tourism. So go soon!
Todays post is another picture from our 2 days in Hanoi, as I finally finished the first Hanoi gallerie, which can now be visited at the colors · and · contrasts website.

Preparing for the ceremony

One of the best - yet unplanned - experiences of the trip was one morning, in which two local tour guides, whom we had met in their small restaurant, took us with their scooter on a trip around the old emporor's town of Hué. So instead of strolling through the emperor's parks and castles, we crossed through littles villages where the school kids where on their way home, saw some huge cemeteries, local people making conical hats and scented candles, and attended a monk ceremony in a small monastery in the middle of the woods. We did actually see some impressive castle as well, which featured Vietnams longest (stone) snake .... Some of the best hours we spent in this country!

Floating town

Today a picture from the famous Halong Bay, one of Vietnam's Unesco world heritage sites. The weather could have been better, but the sight of hundred of these islands stretched for kilometer after and kilometer was nevertheless impressive. As impressive was to see how many people literally lived on the water - in floating houses, sometimes isolated and sometimes gathered to form small towns with people constantly commuting between the houses in little boats.

Flower Hmong

Well, since the previous image didn't probably give you the feeling of 'literally hundreds of beautifully dressed Flower Hmong', here a another picture from the Bac Ha market that gives you a better idea of what I was describing. As I said - photographer's heaven, so I might post more pictures of this day.

Shy Hmong girls

The second part of our trip through Vietnam led us to the Sapa mountains, northwest of Hanoi. These mountains are mainly famous for the large number of different ethnic minorities - among them various groups of Hmong - who still live in a very traditional way, despite the growing numbers of tourists. We were lucky enough to be able to go to the village of Bac Ha on a sunday, were literally hundreds of beautifully dressed Flower Hmong are holding and visiting the local market. This place was photographers' heaven, and luckily it was one of the few sunny days of our trip, so the colors of their dresses were really shining.

The streets of Hanoi

Finally the first image from our great trip to Vietnam. Since it will take me some time to sort and select from the about 2000 images I brought back (I had probably taken twice as many...), I thought I'll try to post one or two images per week in the blog, before I will manage to upload the galleries.
It was hard to pick the first image - I wanted it to be representative, but that was difficult considering all the things we've seen. Probably the strongest impression though made the streets of Hanoi, were we spend our first days. The crazy traffic, the whole life of the people taking place on the streets, the immediate vicinity of poverty and wealth, all those smells and sights both beautiful and alien to us ... it represented all I had hoped for and found in the old quarter of Hanoi!

Last winter in Göttingen

Happy new year to everyone!
These are our last days here in Göttingen. It's some beautiful snowy winter days - at least for me, Ioanna is enjoying 22°C in Athens. Soon we'll start our trip to Vietnam and then we'll have to move to our new home in Frankfurt during the last days of January. We won't have such a nice view as here, but we'll have a small garden, which should make up for it. I hope many of you are going to visit us there!