Vietnam x 2016

Just a heads up, this post is extremely lengthy from an influx of pictures and a lot of text, so I hope you're ready to do a lot of scrolling. I'm also going to take a different route and change it up a bit; I'll mix up the pictures and texts in hope that you guys wouldn't get bored of seeing a heap of pictures in one go or having to read a giant essay haha.

Before starting off this (most probably) lengthy chunks of text, I'd like to express my 2 cents as to why I am not 100% satisfied with some of these pictures. Being the last minute person I am, I packed pretty much a day before I left, so it's only expected that I would have forgotten a couple of things back at home. This time round I foolishly left behind my camera cable, meaning that I couldn't transfer my photos and store them onto my laptop. So what this meant was that I was restricted to around 250 photos (it's a 9 year old camera so I had very limited memory) to spread across my 4 week trip - I had to use each shot sparingly. Out of the 250 photos I only managed to scavenge a bit over 100 photos, which is a big disappointment as there were some photos that I really liked but they were too out of focus or they just couldn't be saved through editing methods. Couldn't I take as many pictures as possible and delete the ones that weren't decent later? I did think about that and it is a valid idea but I'm lazy and nobody has time for that haha. There weren't many camera shops around where I had my tours so that ruled out the possibility of purchasing a new cable. But with that aside, I did manage to capture a couple of pictures that I quite like and I hope some of you find them somewhat entertaining too.

Kicking off 2016 I spent half of January and February overseas in Vietnam suffering from intense, humid conditions with a sprinkle of slight food poisoning here and there. Once you disregard those unfortunate experiences, however, the trip itself was somewhat 'refreshing,' or so I feel that is the correct word to express how I feel. It was an escape that was long overdue to say the least - a getaway from all the stress that has built up since the last time I've been in Vietnam, which was roughly 5 years ago. Albiet, I did experience several cases where I felt very homesick but then again it was inevitable. It was all well, though, as it was easily solved with a quick fix of Maccas haha. To my surprise their Maccas are very similar to the ones over here - they even use Australian beef too like dam +1 for authenticity.

My trip was thrown into full throttle from the very beginning as my family booked a tour around southern Vietnam literally a day after touchdown. Off the top of my head, we visited Hue, Da Nang and Nha Trang, all of which were incredibly beautiful places. The first few pictures of the fancy looking castles or temples or what have you, were in Hue I assume haha. I didn't really pay attention to the names of places because I was too keen on what was actually there as opposed to what it was called, if you catch my drift haha. But if I could remember properly, it belonged to the Emperor
himself.

We also got the chance to explore the Emperor's crib in a horse carriage although I did feel super bad since it was pulling a lot of weight. The caretaker himself said there wasn't going to be problem but that didn't waive my guilt haha, I sure do hope that the horse is healthy and treated well. I couldn't manage to take as many pictures as I'd like of the palace itself as I only brought along my 50mm lens, which I deeply regret. Basically what that meant for me was that if I wanted to fit a big subject, for example a nice giant building, into the entire frame I'd had to stand literally 100 metres away from it, and I'm not even exaggerating. (If you're still reading at this point I would like to take this time to say thank you for being such a lovely person haha I appreciate you.)

These 'in the moment' type of pictures are one of the reasons why I love doing photography

As far as I can remember, we only spent a day in Da Nang so I didn't get the chance to take many pictures. Okay scratch that maybe I was just a little lazy, but I did visit the famous Dragon Bridge at night and watched it spit fire lmao it was lit. Again I didn't get any pictures of the Dragon Bridge because of my limited focal range that the 50mm lens had to offer but it was also during low light conditions and I was surrounded by a crap tonne of people. You can imagine that I needed very optimal conditions to be able to get a decent picture so yea nah I think I'm just going to pass on this one haha.

I then visited Bana Hills which is hands down one of the most visually stunning places I've ever visited. The first leg of the trip was started off with an intense cable ride - the longest ride in the world as of 2009, although I'm unsure if it still holds the record today or not. At the end of the lengthy ride you're greeted with an area which gives off a very 'kingdom' kinda vibe haha that's the best way I can describe it. Admittedly I did spent a lot of time at the arcade which was super great, everything was free so who wouldn't want to give every single ride/game a go at least once? The latter areas of Bana Hills was a bombardment of flowers everywhere you looked, but hey, I wasn't complaining.

Annabelle's 3rd Birthday Party !!!!!!!!!

Other than that, nothing very significant happened after the 5 day tour (I'm actually lying I visited a couple other places but I'd like to avoid making this post a trilogy of novels). The vacation itself in Vietnam slowed down after our 5 day tour which is really needed as everyone was hella exhausted. I literally spent most of my time afterwards taking it easy, which was good as it really gave me time to reset myself and recuperate from everything that has been happening. I also got to visit a Dog Cafe !!!! Legit one of the highlights of the trip honestly.

I had the chance to visit Ba Ngoai's (Grandma's) resting place. I genuinely hope you're doing well wherever you are. Everyone misses you dearly, especially Ong Ngoai. I really do hope you're proud of what I'm doing, what I'm becoming and what I've achieved so far. We'll all definitely see you soon, so don't you worry because I'll make sure that I'll tell you about everything that has happened, I won't skip any details! We're all doing well, so don't worry about us. Con thuong Ba Ngoai nhieu lam. Rest easy, Ba Ngoai.

If you're still reading at this point, thank you for being an incredibly lovely person. Admittedly if I were reading this I would have probably stopped somewhere up there haha. If I could I'd give you a giant hug for being so supportive. Keep doing you, you wonderful person.

Edit: I just reread the entire post with the new format and yeah I reckon it doesn't flow as well as I'd like but hey, it was something different. I'll probably revert back to the old dump of photos followed by the chunk of text.