First time in Vietnam & I booked a direct flight to Hanoi. The main idea was to be there to shoot & attend a fellow RF-er’s wedding in Hanoi. I spend 5 days mostly alone in Hanoi. I had no prior planning on where I should be going or what I should be doing. Just booked a flight & the hotel & let the road take me for 5 days before I met up with Mai to head to Halong Bay. I enjoyed shooting there, the only thing that allowed me to get to places & navigate would be my iPhone with the GPS & just one pirated copy of Lonely Planet, Vietnam sold along the streets in Hanoi.
Every morning before I got out of the hotel, read a couple of pages of Lonely Planet, Vietnam, routed the route on my iPhone & walked around for almost 4-5hours each day taking pictures & experiencing the local culture.
Most of the locals called me “dien” which meant “mad” in Vietnamnese as in the daily average of 15 degree celsius, I was only wearing T-shirts, berms. I got quite a fair bit of stares from all the locals as they were all wrapped up in their jackets etc. The old quarter where I stayed in was an amazing place & that was the place where the wonderful street life takes place. From 5am-11pm, there was plenty to shoot all round.
I guess the only problem there would be communication as the Vietnamese people do not actually speak English well. These are my documentation of life in Hanoi, I hope you all enjoy them!
Photographer: Gary Wang
Camera: Konica Hexar + Canon 50mm F1.4 LTM, Leica M2 + Canon 35mm F2 LTM