bye bye bus... not...

...immigration stop at the border

on my birthday, i gave myself a present - trip to vietnam... all just fell into place for this trip... my wife thought this would be good for me (we celebrated my birthday the night before with friends), a dear friend, m - conceded to my invitation of going to vietnam on a short notice and my work contract has not come out.

this trip was supposed to be for the philippines but due to circumstances that favored me staying - the vietnam idea came up...

bags packed - including cameras - one on my belt (a back up point and shoot) and another one inside a carry on camera bag. my friend m procured the day before tickets for us and arrived at the house twenty five minutes before departure time... left the house still at a comfortable time of fifteen minutes.

as we were nearing the bus station, i remembered that i picked up my mother and sister at another bus station when they visited cambodia before. immediately, we informed the tuktuk driver to proceed to another bus station - five minutes before departure. i was already feeling uneasy thinking that we wont be able to make it. we got there on time but the bus was nowhere to be found. it was stationed at the location where we originally was heading. alarm bells started ringing loud. we definitely are not going to make it.

phone calls were made from station to station. and we were informed to intersect with the bus station in route. i feel like we were on a mission - it was an adrenaline rush and the tuktuk driver was pushing his engines to the limits (could do more actually). as we arrived at the designated intersection, we saw the bus turning and i thought, this is it. we definitely will be able to make it. i was wrong. the bus didn't stop. phone calls again - loud harsh voices from our end of the line asking them to stop for we are already tailing them. the bus kept on going. another phone call - this time harsher and louder. again, it didn't work.

heavy traffic ahead - the bus crawled into a very slow pace, my hopes went up again. we got to the side of the bus and the tuktuk driver started banging on the side of the bus for them to open the door, to no avail. up came the bridge - i said to myself, if we don't make it this time, trip is canceled. phone calls again - the bus will stop at the foot of the bridge on the other end. it stopped. we hurriedly got off the tuktuk, carried our bags and settled comfortably at our assigned seats. the trip is on. as i normally would say on these kind of instances - it was a photo finish. vietnam, here we come...

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...of shops and flowers, saigon, vietnam

... machine at rest for the day - olympus e520 of m

as i stepped out of the hotel to start our trek of the 'urban jungle' (urban jungle daw o - hehehe), i couldn't help it but be reminded of the story i read of a photographer visiting vietnam whose camera, a nikon d300, was snatched from him. i think that was the cautious side of me that brought up this thought - hoping too that my camera sling is sturdy enough to withstand a yanking force. but then again, as photo opportunities started materializing, this thought just dissipated into thin air... for an obvious reason... camera capture started.

this time its on the park's flower beds and shops that are scattered around the city... interesting though that parks are named resembling a code, i.e., park e291.

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look who's here II... samapi sportsfest 2009

taking photos of people really gives me this certain sense of satisfaction that can't be compared when i take shots of scenery or other inanimate objects. i took another look of the file folder of the shots taken during the second sunday of the samapi sportsfest and decided to have another little compilation of fav shots.

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street scenes: ho chi minh (saigon) city, vietnam

here are scenes that welcomed us in saigon as we did our walking tour of the city. i brought along my lighter dslr camera (in this trip) for convenience but as the day wore on it started to weigh like a ton (exaggeration)... i slung it on my shoulder, constantly shifting it every now and then to what-have-you positions to make it more bearable. it was a very hot humid day coupled with being lost finding touristy sites using an old map... there would be spots (cafe), i considered oasis, that re-energized us on our never ending walk around the city. i am amazed by the resilience, patience and most importantly, the sense of humor of my companion. thanks m - the laughter shared during this walk was tantamount to being drenched with cold water on a hot summer sun - rejuvenating. now, let's continue walking... :-)

opera house, ho chi minh (saigon) city, vietnam

this is one of the places visited on the day my friend and i did our 'walkathon' around the city of Saigon. I decided to use black and white as i am trying to learn more on how to improve my monotone photos (originally shot in color)...

this opera house is a must see place in Saigon which is located at the intersection of Le Loi and Dont Khoi (the street straight up from the Cathedral) Sts. , District 1. Right in front of this opera house is a park. Passing through this park will lead you to an intersection. Don't forget to turn right after the park so as not to miss the magnificent city hall, which we missed when we were there.

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bayon temple, angkor

"Bayon Temple is the spectacular central temple of the ancient city of Angkor Thom, which is located just to the north of the famous Angkor Wat in Angkor, Cambodia.

Angkor Thom was built as a square, the sides of which run exactly north to south and east to west. Standing in the exact center of the walled city, Bayon Temple represents the intersection of heaven and earth. Built around 1190 AD by King Jayavarman VII, Bayon is a budhhist temple but it incorporates elements of Hindu cosmology.

Bayon is known for its huge stone faces of the bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara, with one facing outward and keeping watch at each compass point. The curious smiling image, thought by many to be a portrait of Jayavarman himself, has been dubbed by some the "Mona Lisa of Southeast Asia." There are 51 smaller towers surrounding Bayon, each with four faces of its own."

...this temple is one of my favorite in the angkor temple complex. ...notice the woman in white seated at the left corner of one of the photos - it shows how massive the temple is... micah was ten months old then when this photo was taken.

source of info: sacred destinations

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