One Night in Saigon

For those of you wishing to browse a gallery of the images, it is at http://www.flickr.com/photos/ngiapheng/sets/72157623829216835/

The choices that I make on this trip are truly arbitrary. But aggressive wheeling dealing cities have never been high on my list of want to get-to-know cities. Saigon, or Ho Chi Minh City as it is known now, is such a place. And if my noise apprentice, Guo Jie, is to be believed, there is almost nothing to see in Saigon (I will use Saigon here because it is more poetic). And he showed me what was worth seeing in one night. I suspect that there is more to see in one of the two major cities in Vietnam, but it is the bustle and human chaos that throws off the gentle soul of Guo Jie. I do not blame him, the bustle jars on my nerves as well.

But it was very nice to have met Guo Jie in Saigon, eat Pho Bo with him and walk to the Majestic hotel to have a diet coke while over looking the Mekong at night. The Filipino band belting out 80s pop music though, were more going through the motions than actually performing.

Over dinner, Guo Jie told me that he was in a panoramic phase, shooting in 16:9 format. And he has found quietness in the anarchy of Saigon. My 16:9 format images for this posting is a gentle nod to Guo Jie's present style, but instead of only finding stillness, I also took pictures of the more typical adrenaline rush of Saigon.