2. Settling in
Day 2
I am in recovery mode and take it slow. A few trips to the market and adjacent convenience store to cover the basics and several lovely chats with my hosts that are super accommodating. I share a bit about my profession and the women suggests that in exchange for taking photos of their rooms I can rent a bicycle for free. I will probably take them up on their offer. My room is on the second floor and the brand new hotel, despite having only 7 rooms, features a lift. I am impressed. The golden shower looks like it belongs into a 300 dollars per night apartment. Upon investigating my hosts tell me that the closed off nook in my room was originally designed to be a balcony to satisfy building regulations...however, at the end of the construction phase and a bribe later it became a closet without door sporting nothing else than a tiny fridge – bizarre! I love background stories like that.
In the evening I walk down several main roads for kilometres to get a feel for the area. Saigon is the epidemy of busy and chaotic but somehow it works and I embrace the flair. All shops and houses are literally so much more open than in most Western countries. Often the living rooms are packed with groceries and fabric and scooters are parked in there, too. At the entrance meals and products are displayed for sale. There is no separation between private life and business. Parents sit with their kids on the floor eating at midnight, guys sleep on their motorcycles during daytime, music is blaring over loudspeakers and there is always the white noise of honking horns and scooters accelerating. Leading away from the main roads there are innumerable alleys, poorly lit, if at all and too narrow for cars. You can get easily lost in a maze of the negative space between residential buildings that defy everything I know about building regulations. To make up for the lack of greenery in the concrete jungle almost everyone has plants on their balcony or roof terrace.
Day 3:
Another day of sorting things out, going to the market, having my first meal in a local restaurant (simple but delicious) and trying to regain strength but keeping my activities easy. In the evening I went again for a long walk through my suburb with an emphasis on the market area. This time however, I was armed with my full frame camera and a stealthy and light 35mm F1.8 lens. I was super cautious that I wouldn't let the camera dangle around or present it in any way as a theft target but in hind sight I can say there was no danger at any point. Of course people stared at me, some were curious, some sceptical looking – so what? A few individuals who were very obviously monitoring my doing received a smile from me or in a handful of instances I asked via body language if they were okay being in the picture or having their portrait taken. Everyone was friendly and not bothered by my camera at all. I enjoyed exploring the small alleys a lot. It was like window shopping. Almost every house offered a new picture taking opportunity. I felt a bit rusty in the beginning but in my defense: finding great angles and motives every single time I take a photo isn't realistic. Nevertheless, I enjoyed the evening A LOT and editing a bunch of the photos the next day was very rewarding. Even the pictures in very low light turned out nicely quality-wise – camera sensor technology has come a long way in the last decade.
