VIETNAM03/02/2011

Discovering the Vietnamese countryside and it’s inhabiters invoked a sensation like none I have ever experienced. Walking down the barely distinguishable roads with nothing but my camera in the morning twilight filled me with a new kind of excitement. The people are up early, engaging with their every-day lives. I gazed across the fields that stretch for miles and miles, dotted with tatty straw hats hiding busy rice farmers. Many farmers look up at me from the fields with their smiling grubby faces, whilst others shy away pretending not to notice me. They work so peacefully under the sun.

Usually the road is paved only for the short sections in

small villages with street vendors that dot the road. The Street Ven-dors boast an impressive display of the most healthiest looking produce I lever laid eyes on. Fresh fruit overflowed from the straw baskets they lay in. Other vendors fill the air with a sweet smelling smoke elevating from tender meats being cooked on open fires. Foreign onversations spo-ken in soft voices soothe my ears. I tilt back my head and bath my face in the gentle cool breeze. I was a long way from home, these were real people, living real lives.

As I stood taking pictures I saw a family eating lunch outside a shabby wooden building. The mother of the family helped clear the table and take some dishes into the building that I then knew they called home. They notice me looking and the kids run out to the edge of the road to take a closer look. The children are incredibly curious but very ap-prehensive and run away when I wave. I knew I was deep into the countryside and well outside of any tourist areas; for the first time in my life I felt very alien.

I gestured the children to come over to me, who were hesitant at first but recognised the innocense of my smile. I knelt down beside them and played through some of the photographs I had been taking, they were more than excited about my device. I hand-

ed the camera over to them and let them take a few photos of their own. It wasn’t long after this that the children had gained a sudden rush of confidence with me, they were tugging my shirt and asking me to play with them. After a short while my time came to leave the family and I could sense the children’s dissappointment. They all followed me

to the end of the road shouting and laughing immitating my farewells’.

The sense of community and the vitality with which these people live is infectious. Smiles and laughter all around. Kids play in courtyards surrounded by their family. Houses are wide open and welcoming to all. People are extremely polite, gener-ous and I get the impression would do anything for their neighbor, which is what our modern world is now missing out on. Vietnamese countryside is a sight to be seen, and something that shouldn’t be missed on a trip to Vietnam. I instantani-ously connected with the beauty and eligance of the people that surrounded me, forgetting the world filled with exces-sive commodities that I come from.