Ha Giang, the far North of Vietnam

Trung,

It is a raft used by local people to cross the river, the family who runs this ferry service lives on the river bank in Cao Bang (see the pic below). We waited on the Ha Giang side, then the couple who were working nearby shouted for us, the boy and his cousin (who was just having some fun on the raft) came to fetch us. 30K vnd for a motorbike to cross if I remember correctly.

_R010556-Edit by T Zhou, on Flickr
 
This is very sad news. The water marks in the city showed the severity of the flooding.

I did notice many small hydraulic plants were being built in the region. More worrying to me was the practice in spring to clear the vegetations on mountain slopes to grow maize. But it would be too easy to criticise as people who live on the top of mountain have hardly anything to live on. Hopefully, the region will have some rethinking to develop its economy in a more sustainable way.
 
I went back to Ha Giang second time in a year. I guess I enjoyed it the first time. It was still easy to see the devastations caused by the flooding 3 months ago. I will try to add few more photos once I get time. Thanks.

_DSC5509-Edit by T Zhou, on Flickr
 
let me bring back to life this thread, as this was the main reason I wanted to visit Northern Vietnam last year, and for anybody who missed this just look at the OP, killer pictures.

more than ten years than original pictures made by kiemchacsu, it's still a different world, even with scooters and large LCD TVs everywhere.
small difference, I wasn't as close to the border with China, with just couple days available we decided to stick to Bắc Hà region, with Hà Giang and Đồng Văn left "for next time".

BW: Konica Off-Road 35, Trix
Color: Pentax Espio Mini, Ektachrome

I already posted couple of them before so please forgive me if you see them second time.


dxwepZs.jpg


ST93sdm.jpg


7qAJuQA.jpg
 
What an utterly enjoyable thread with some amazing imagery and socio-cultural commentary.

Stunning color and B&W work. Beautiful!

Thanks for resurrecting it @jbielikowski!
 
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jbielikowski said:
let me bring back to life this thread, as this was the main reason I wanted to visit Northern Vietnam last year, and for anybody who missed this just look at the OP, killer pictures.

more than ten years than original pictures made by kiemchacsu, it's still a different world, even with scooters and large LCD TVs everywhere.
small difference, I wasn't as close to the border with China, with just couple days available we decided to stick to Bắc Hà region, with Hà Giang and Đồng Văn left "for next time".

BW: Konica Off-Road 35, Trix
Color: Pentax Espio Mini, Ektachrome

I already posted couple of them before so please forgive me if you see them second time.


dxwepZs.jpg


ST93sdm.jpg


7qAJuQA.jpg
Click to expand...
THanks for revisting the thread; For quite a long time I haven't managed to back to Hagiang.
And it's just in time that I will be back there this July, hopefully can capture some new interesting photos.
Great shots. @jbielikowski and keep posting. Cheers;
 
I'm happy this thread got some more attention it well deserved.

Freakscene said:
These are just amazingly excellent. The tones you get from Tri-X are really great. Do you use filters? The skies look amazing.
Click to expand...
thank you! I used a simple P&S so what I've done is develop the film in DD-X for maximum latitude and adjusted to taste with heavily-handed dodge&burn.
in darkroom terms sky need like 60 sec of exposure, while moutains are around 8 sec IIRC, I made some prints of them and got similar results to what I've done in Photoshop.

ckAZRQa.jpg


oMCBFBJ.jpg


udJzWfl.jpg
 
Nice captues, @Tim Zhou
The 2nd picture depicted a dramatic change in the outfit of local ethnic people. Now they look not not so different to the majority of Kinh ethnic people.
I must go back Ha Giang soon, it's been more than 5 years since my last visit.
 
@kiemchacsu
Hi Trung, hope you and your family are keeping well. Long time no see! The pandemic stopped me travelling for 3 years! I guess you also travelled less? Yes, you must go back and take more photos 😀
I regretted that I didn't ask this girl's mother about their ethnic background. Her mother ran this restaurant somewhere in Hoang Su Phi, a predominantly black Dao area. It was a market day when everyone dressed better than usual.
 
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