This was 7.30 am, She’ll walk around all the shops, coffee shops, eateries and restaurants all day selling stuff that is non-essential to life and is basically cheap plastic rubbish! She’ll be happy if she makes £3.00 today. Her day will probably finish about 9, tonight.
This is ‘my corner’. A ‘retro’ coffee shop where I do all my writing and thinking! From here I can travel anywhere, meet everyone and know everything! Mind you – the ‘internet’ helps!The owner seems to be a ‘casual’ trader in ‘retro’ stuff as the pictures seem to change daily in ‘john’s corner!
Today’s picture.
Yesterday’s picture.
“Don’t worry Rodney, this time next year we’ll be millionaires.”———Very possible in Vietnam where 1,000,000 Vietnam Dong is worth about £15.00
“The only way is up.” – baby, for you and me girl! Yazz and The Plastic Population – 1988. ‘Going up’ is not a good career move for these piglets!
The day before yesterday’s picture!
Money for nothing! – Dire Straights – 1985. We gotta move these refrigerators, we gotta move these colour TV’s ——- or at least their packaging!
There is a fire, down below, down below in my heart! —-Jeri Southern 1957 – Or in this case down below in my electric motorbike cum sort of sweetish /savoury bun bar.
‘Can the Can’ – Suzi Quatro 1973. This lady has just quietly dragged her cart through ‘traffic mayhem’ as she goes about surviving from day to day.
This man is always smiling and occasionally singing. He spends all day and most days on a petrol station forecourt selling lottery tickets. I buy a couple every time I fill up my motor bike, which is about once a week (£1.50 a fill-up).
And finally!
Yes! You’ve guessed it! Another picture from an obscure past.
Take care out there in Tier(ful) UK. Love and Peace J
Sunday, 15 November 2020. Written by Alberto Prieto. Photos by Alberto Prieto.TRIGGER
AAAOctober was a month of unceasing devastation and pain for central Vietnam. It started with unprecedented downpours; then consecutive typhoons hit; and sudden landslides turned deadly fast. A few weeks ago, Saigoneer‘s photographer followed a charity organization during their relief efforts into some of Quang Binh’s hardest-hit communities. Here’s a first-hand account from central Vietnam.
Monday, October 19
It’s 5am and I’m tired from having to wake up early. I’m nervous too, as expectations started forming in my head of what I am about to experience. When I announced my intention of visiting the disaster-hit area, my friends and family members cheered me on, but a thought remains in my head: “Be very careful.” Now, off to a flight to Dong Hoi in Quang Binh Province, where I was just exploring the famous Phong Nha caves a few months prior. It was there I learned of a new type of house equipped with plastic barrels, allowing them to float in case of flood. A big storm a few years ago had even completely submerged the utility poles, as the guide on that trip explained to me.
While memories of the past trip were still brewing in my head, the pilot warns that we’re encountering some turbulence. “We will try to land the aircraft,” he announces. He could barely finish the sentence when the first bump comes; the plane is jerking in a way I’ve never experienced before. “It’s impossible, sorry, we’ll land at a nearby airport,” the captain informs us. After three grueling hours in the air, we land in Hanoi and I’m stuck at the terminal waiting to fly again in the afternoon. We manage to land in Quang Binh in one piece after the second flight.
Once at the hotel, without time to rest, my partner tells us that the local policemen have given us the address of one family whose relative passed away in a landslide. Without any time to take in our surrounding, the woman receives another incoming call: they have recovered the body of her late husband, as well as those of the young soldiers that everybody in the village has known since they were little kids. The family is summoned to the town sports center.
The mother of the soldier and his widow are kind enough to allow us to share that extremely personal and heart-wrenching moment of mourning. Upon arrival, all we can see are faces painted with anguish and the emotional fatigue of having cried for hours, nights and days since they first learned of the catastrophe. All the families and friends of the victims, and groups of curious locals, congregate at the door of the sports center waiting to be called, to face the bitter reality. The guard calls the neighboring family of the woman. With great sorrow, she mentions how her son grew up, studied and worked together with that neighbor boy. The family members come inside, their shadows on the floor lengthening away from the light, as if a harbinger to what they are about to witness.
Finally, we are next in the queue. Pure silence. “Không chụp (no photo),” the guard warns me. They escort us into the enclosure, leading us to an improvised funeral area with incense sticks provided by town officials. Sudden sobbing cut off the faint murmuring in the room: “Con ơi, con ơi.” I feel a lump in my throat and it’s difficult for me to hold the emotions down. Staying as silent as I can, I watch and listen, but tears start falling down my cheeks. Deep down, I know I need the emotional relief that way, but I also wish to share condolences and give the woman a tight hug.
Something holds me back, however. I am in many ways a puppet outside my stage. “Who am I to interrupt that moment? What the hell was I doing there?” similar thoughts fill my mind. When we reach the exit I try to keep my distance and go unnoticed. Well, as much as I can, as an almost two-meter-tall ông Tây with tear-stained cheeks. At last our time to go came, and we left the family alone with their grief. As I approach the woman, however, I feel it coming and break down. The woman starts to tear up again; it’s an incredibly bittersweet moment, much superior to pure grief, because two people from different worlds and generations can share a common feeling — a real sense of empathy.
Tuesday, October 20
At 5am, after breakfast, the real adventure begins. We hop on a bus and joke with our sư phụ, traditional medicine practitioner Võ Hoàng Yên, who’s always attentive and loving. The rain accompanies us without stealing the spotlight; it’s been a constant for the past days. The bus stops in the middle of nowhere; from the outside, it looks just like any other house on the road. We plant the banner of our charity association and people begin to arrive. The TV cameras are ready and I begin to feel the sense of discomfort that would accompany me throughout the day.
The VND500,000 bills are placed inside envelopes. The crowds wait as the announcer goes down the list; others are there for whatever donations are available. The situation is not exactly what I expected. I want to be more active and be useful to the people.
After a speech by sư phụ, the envelopes are distributed in an orderly, almost monotonous manner. I decide to go for a walk to take in the scene. I want to get a feel of the people, and that’s when my feelings start to shift, I begin to understand what I have already felt about the Vietnamese people for so many years: a sense of warmth, even under that relentless rain. Life goes on.
When I return to the makeshift donation area, I’m able to enjoy the situation in a more personal way. I start to understand why we are here. We get on the bus after gifting an envelope to an old woman carried by a very insistent man. The importance of the relief work is marked by that symbolic moment.
After several stops to deliver goods, hampered by traffic jams, we arrive at a place closer to what I had in my mind. It’s arguably inaccessible, a dead-end shut off by a sea of water, where we delivered all kinds of goods.
Knowing what to expect, we arrive at a communal house next to a crossroads. Some very nice gentlemen bring out rice wine and 555 loosies, and it takes just a second to break the ice — these are my kind of people. Tuấn, with great charm, introduces us to the crowds as anh Ba Khía. Why not? Anh Ba Tuấn. There is much revelry.
We head to Hue and rest after another incredible vegan dinner. Until the next day.
Wednesday, October 21
It’s 5am and everyone is on the bus again. Sư phụ informs me that today we will make our way into a more isolated and affected area around the old imperial capital. On the way and through the window of the bus, I am surprised to see many mausoleums and family tombs half-submerged in water. My travel partners share that it is a very typical practice in the region to acquire small plots of land and turn them into places of ritual for the dead.
Once in the vicinity of the village, we stop at a communal center where food, medicine, and life jackets are stored for those affected by the disasters, ready to be distributed. We load a tractor and set a course over the calm water.
We hang the banner bearing the name of our charity using some improvised poles, and I walk around, this time with an absolute peace of mind. I’m now able to take in the experience and interact with the local people. Here, the young and old take care of each other, with smiles on their faces, happy as if the recent string of calamities never happened.
After all, this is one of the true strengths and points of pride of the Vietnamese people: to be able to find hope and reasons to smile even during the most difficult situations — they have the soul of warriors and the strength of survivors.
No ‘furlough’ No ‘Universal Credit’ No ‘Housing Benefit’ No National Health Service! But then again no Covid!
Monday, 02 November 2020. Written by Alden Anderson. Photos by Alden Anderson.TRIGGER
AAAThe water reached my shoulders, and when I stepped into the street I suddenly felt the current trying to pull me into its invisible grasp. A familiar feeling that set off an alarm inside my head: “Be careful! It looks like nothing, but don’t get caught in it.”
When I first visited Hoi An more than two years ago, almost every old house I saw had marks of the flood levels from years prior. These floods are actually an overflow of the Thu Bon River, along which Hoi An is built. This became abundantly clear when I stepped into the street and felt the current of the river nearly knock me off my feet.
Hoi An Ancient Town sprung up around the banks of the Thu Bon in central Vietnam, and for hundreds of years was a nexus for shipping routes around the world. In the 20th century, ostensibly due to the river filing with silt (among other factors), the shipping hub was gradually replaced by Da Nang and other ports that were more accessible to large sea-faring vessels. Hoi An was left largely undisturbed by modern development, and in 1999 was designated a UNESCO World Heritage site.
These days in Hoi An, there is a dam upriver and residents typically get a warning from the authorities before water from it is released. These warnings and preparation means flooding in Hoi An is an inconvenience, but isn’t typically life-threatening. Locals are quite accustomed to the streets turning into a temporary extension of the Thu Bon.
There hadn’t really been any flooding since I first visited Hoi An in May 2018. After five days of heavy rain last month, however, I decided to visit the Old Town and see how people were dealing with the flood.
Bình, 24, plays in the flooded streets of Hoi An, letting the current carry him along.
The first person I saw was Sa, standing in the door to the attic of her house, or the flood escape hatch, as it were.
There was a kind of beauty in the Old Town; ocher walls reflected in the turgid water, brown from the silt of the fields and mountains above. The revving and honking of motorcycles replaced by boats and the occasional paddle board.
By the early afternoon, water levels had receded considerably, and the street where the water had been up to my neck was now just over waist-high, making movement easier and safer.
Perhaps the most interesting, and certainly the most rewarding, part came two days later. As crews scraped the mud from the streets, my partner Trinh and I drove around Hoi An to deliver photos and learn the stories from the people I’d encountered during the flood.
During the flood, local boat operators offered rides to people wanting to explore Hoi An.
It was in these stories that I learned more about the flood, how the locals respond to it, and little details about the lives of the people living in Hoi An. Stories like why Tuân was hauling his dogs back through the second-story window of his house, as well as his dogs’ names and the meaning behind them. Or Sa, and why her house has a strange door in the attic. Bình, and what he was doing holding a broom in the middle of the flooded street, why he lives in Hoi An, and how he deals with floods.
These small details brought me a greater understanding of Hoi An and a deeper, more personal meaning to the photographs of the people.
A local boat operator paddles around the Old Town.
“Local foreigner” Thomas Weingärtner explores the Old Town on his inflatable kayak. Thomas paddled out the front door of his partially submerged homestay in Hoi An.
The iconic Japanese Bridge partially submerged by the Thu Bon River.
“The water was flowing strong. We had to paddle against the current so much that we were almost out of breath.” Năm and her husband live on An Hoi Island (across from the Old Town) which was underwater. During the flooding, they gave tourists boat rides around Hoi An Old Town.
“This ladder is used as a tool for us to climb down to the boat. It is tied to the balcony.” Nga holds her daughter Thảo, 6, on her balcony during the October floods in Hoi An.
Nga and her daughter Thảo watch boats go by in front of their house.
Nguyen Thai Hoc Street under water.
Sa stands at the emergency flood exit door built into the attic of her house in Hoi An. “If the water flow is too strong and rises fast, we have to escape through this door,” she explains.
“Normally, I just stay home to rest. I was riding the boat with my grandson that day.” Tí, 70, looks for clients around Hoi An.
Tí, 70, paddles down Nguyen Thai Hoc Street with her grandson.
Tuân enters his house via the upstairs window with his dogs. After trying unsuccessfully to enter the house from the submerged ground level door, his family stopped by in a boat and helped him get onto the awning with his dogs.
Tuân hangs his clothes out to dry.
A local woman washes the gongs from her house in the flooded streets.
Top photo: Bình, 24, poses with a broom outside of his home during the flood. “I was using that broom to push the trash stuck on the walls away.” Bình rented a house to open a coffee shop in a small alley in Hoi An. However, the coffee shop has been closed due to COVID-19 .
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