We have been back from wonderful Vietnam for about a month now so thought I would share a few that I like from our recent trip.

Dee and I spent a little over 3 weeks in this amazing country and its incredibly friendly and service-orientated people. Our journey actually started in Paris, then onto Hong Kong before arriving in Hanoi.

I am very fortunate in having Dee to organize these amazing trips, every hotel, B&B, home-stay, or eco-retreat has been throughly researched ahead of time along with, train bookings, coach timetables, internal flights, taxi pick-ups….. you name it she has it and has organized it …. excel sheet after excel sheet!!

We like to see and do a lot in 3 weeks – a bit of adventure, mixed in with some chill out time and generally spend 2/3 days in each place and after a little bribery we generally try and hire a motorbike to get off the beaten track and explore.

Lots of friends and clients ask “What do you take pictures of on holiday?¨ The answer is pretty much everything! I am by no means a street photographer and I think it is hard to get the balance right when you are “on holiday” – it generally limits too many early mornings and its more of a “have a holiday and take the cameras” than purely a photography holiday.

After two previous trip to India, I actually managed to take much less “stuff” on this adventure, and now its a case of “way too much stuff”!!  When I travel now I tend to take along just these two beauties:

Fuji X100s

Fuji XPRO1 (35mm lens)

I am not a camera reviewer but did spend months deciding whether I should upgrade from the X100 to the X100s, I did, and am very glad I did – it is as most people say the camera we all wanted the X100 to be.  If your toying with the idea buy the X100s.

I would be here for days trying to tell you about all the places we visited and things we did but if you are planning on visiting then please drop me and email and happy to offer any advice. We try and stay off the tourist trail as much as possible and the only way you can do that is spend months researching it (thanks Dee)

So in a nutshell:

Hanoi 

The “Paris of Asia”, a little calmer than Saigon and amazing street food

Mai Chau

Hill tribes, the real countryside, rice paddies with stunning mountain backdrops

Hanoi

More street food, street karaoke, motorbikes, museums

Cat Ba Island, Halong Bay

Floating villages, kayaking, over 1500 limestone karsts (the sticky up mountains …. think Bond and Man with the Golden Gun)

Tam Hai

Backwaters, rural life, shrimp farms and vast stretches of deserted beaches

Hue

Museums, more museums, emperors citadel, monks, Japanese foot bridge

Vinh Moc Tunnels & Phong Nha

Caves!! a must if you are adventurous and planning on going to Vietnam

Saigon

Crazy, crazy, happening city where old meets new, crossing the road really is as hard as they say it is, they have around 4 million mopeds…

Cai Rang / Can Tho

Cycling along the Mekong, beautiful sunsets, rural life, floating markets, land markets with the most incredible choice of exotic fruits and vegetables

Phu Quoc Islands

Parts of it are paradise but hurry up …. mass tourism is on its way.   Its well worth the short internal flight from Saigon to chill out and escape

Saigon

Still crazy but getting much better at crossing roads

 

J+D