I'm just finishing the first 24 hours of my big Asian/European trip. I left Perth on a 1am flight this morning, and after a stop-over in Malaysia the flight terminated in Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) in Vietnam around lunch time.
I haven't done much more since arriving at my hotel except get my bearings, catch up on some sleep, go out for dinner and do a bit of exploring on foot.


1. & 2. The first day of my trip began with this sunrise at Kuala Lumper airport.


3. & 4. Kuala Lumper airport is huge and very easy to get around.


5. & 6. There were plenty of exhausted travellers waiting for connecting flights.

While waiting at KL airport, I spent time chatting with Sophie. She is a woman was also travelling from Perth to Vietnam on my flights. She had an amazing story. She was born in Vietnam in 1973 but was evacuated to Australia as an infant and adopted by an Australian/English couple. Today is the beginning of her first trip back to the country of her birth (at age 37), and she is here to try to track down her biological family and home village. Because the evacuation happened during the chaos of war, there are very few records made and ones that do exist were often inaccurate. So she has a real challenge ahead of her that involves a lot of leg-work. She also fears some prejudice from certain Vietnamese, as she clearly looks Vietnames but speaks with a broad Australian accent (and can't speak Vietnamese). I can only imagine what it must be like for her to have such a huge aspect of her life being completely unknown though, and she was determined to find some answers. Unfortunately I have no photos of her.


7. & 8. KL Airport has an internal shuttle train joining the Satellite terminal to the main terminal. Upon arrival at Saigon I was instantly treated to a million examples of on-the-fly logistical problem solving. I never get tired of watching this fine art.


9. & 10. Views from the taxi ride and my hotel room. Sadly the hotel management (in the name of safety?) have a heavy wire mesh over my window, making it inconvenient for photos.


11. & 12. After catching up on some sleep I wandered out to find some dinner. The streets are amazing. Cities like this make Australian cities feel so dull and sterile. I found a really nice little restaurant, had a great meal, and with drinks and a generous tip it cost me $5.

If today is any indication, I think I'll be taking a lot of photos on this trip! hehe.. but don't expect posts like this every day!

First class reporting, Kombi! This is the type of travel documentary that we are all hoping for. What do you mean you can't do this everyday?

BTW: 8 and 11 my favs.

Fantastic update Adrian - love it.

A great photographic journey.

It is very exciting for anyone to go to another country and attempt to wander around as you would in your own country.
I felt threatened in Singapore, less than 200 yards from my hotel, but only (probably) because I was unsure of strangers. ( They were all strangers )
There is a little prickle at the back of your neck somedays, unless you are with one of the locals.

Thanks guys.

NT, I know the feeling you're talking about. I get it a bit when I first arrive at any new city until I get a lie of the land. I'm sure most people do. In the case of Saigon it took me about half a day to stop trying to be a control freak and just embrace what it has to offer. It's the kind of city where going with the flow is essential to enjoying yourself and being at ease.

I've had an extremely busy couple of days since my post above. Here are a bunch more pics from yesterday and today.


1. & 2. A man sells live fish from his scooter and two ladies watch their dog.


3. & 4. Scenes from Saigon's largest pagoda. Smoke from burning incense creates beautiful shafts of light when the sun shines in.


5. & 6. More street scenes from Saigon.


7. & 8. I visited the War Remnants Museum which was deeply moving. Apart from the harrowing stories and exhibits, there is a superb exhibition of powerful news photographs covering the Vietnam war as caputed by photojournalists from numerous countries. The second photograph is the side of a Chinook helicoptor.


9. & 10. In the city central, the traditional Vietnamese cityscape begins to give way to more modern consmopolitan styling. The second photograph is of a wedding photography studio.


11. & 12. Today I spent 5 hours on the back of a motorbike getting to and from the Mekong Delta and another 5 hours being shown around the various islands and canals, not to mention the river itself. What a fantastic day. Even the fact that the last hour riding back to Saigon was in an absolute downpour couldn't put a dent on the day. It's all part of the fun.


13. & 14. Canal rowing boats in the Mekong Delta.


15. A woman rowing a boat down a canal, and another woman carves coconuts on Unicorn island, the island most known for its coconut trees.

Fascinating! Cool as the street scenes are (and they are) - the Mekong Delta photos really open up the country to me...

Love it all and that guy with the live fish is a classic.

Don't know how I missed this. I love this documentary reportage series: it appears to develop cogency and confidence the further you are along the journey, also getting somehow below and inside the experience...I'm reminded of the Heart of Darkness oddly enough. Really great..it's as you are not there but I am, if you understand what I mean! Really nice, Ade.

Zig, I've thought a lot about your comparison to Heart of Darkness. I must confess that I haven't read the book (yet), but I certainly know of it and have seen the movie Apocalypse Now which is based loosely on Heart of Darkness and has an obvious link to Vietnam.
So I guess when I think of your comparison of my journey to Heart of Darkness, in my mind I am really comparing it to Apocalypse Now.

While my experience in Vietnam has certainly been a complex journey of discovery where I've learned a lot about myself as well as a culture and people who I believe are often misunderstood and overlooked, far from discovering a heart of darkness, I found a humanity I thought no longer existed in the modern world. I've been truly humbled by the generosity and warmth of the people I met in Saigon particularly, but also Hoi An and along the way.

But it's not all rosy, and a quick glance through Vietnam's history will show that it's not always a place of peace and love. There's a trail of blood leading to the Vietnam of today, and it goes back a lot further than the 60's.
Yet the Vietnamese people seem to hold no grudges. The older people I spoke to talk with sadness about the American war, but not with resentment or bitterness. It is a part of their history, but Vietnam has it's eyes firmly set on the future. As a people, the Saigonese seem to be a very unselfconscious, practical, no-nonsense, unsentimental, good natured people who just want to get on with things.

There are so many lessons here that Australians (and many developed westerners) could learn about how to live more effectively as a community. But instead I'm sure the wave of westernisation that's sweeping the globe will eventually take over Saigon. It seems to be sweeping through the capital of Hanoi already, and sadly my experience there was very different to Saigon.
The kids I saw in Hanoi were too-cool-for-school wearing their bling and strutting around trying to impress each other. Tourists are just a necessary inconvenience needed to provide funds for another new jacket or some more jewellery. In other words, it was becoming just like walking through the trendy parts of any western city, only set in an old, authentic, south-east Asian backdrop.

Of course... my experiences (particularly in Hanoi) were very limited. Dumb luck plays a big part in deciding the people you bump into in such situations and the experiences you have. I don't mean to stereotype an entire nationality of people with these statements, but nevertheless, these were the experiences I had.