SketchTravel in Vietnam
I eat a rat
It's true, I did eat a rat in Vietnam. But it was cooked, splayed and seared over a hot flame. This was in the Mekong Delta south of Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon as we know it). It is a rare item in the country's cuisine, and only available in the rice-growing delta after the rice harvest. They're little creatures that feed on the rice grains that have fallen off the stalks - so they eat a clean diet. No junkyard rats. It was tasty but small. I could have eaten an extended family of them.
How to cross a street in Saigon
Sketching is the most fun during travels, when all you see is new, different, and hopefully challenging to your comfort zone. I decided to take a trip there based on an interest in my neighbor Rob's involvement. He is an anesthesiologist who takes a surgical team with him once or twice a year. They set up shop somewhere and perform free cleft-palette surgeries on poor kids who really need them. This is a huge and amazing endeavor, but that's another story really. I did plan my trip so I could hook up with them in Ho Chi Minh City and ride in their caravan down to their destination of Can Tho. That's where I ate the rat for dinner. But before that…
As the main organizer of their trip, Rob sent out emails of all the details to be taken care of such as specific things you will need, shots for diseases and so on. One item was how to cross a street in Saigon. Although it sounds like a joke, pedestrian are not regarded nicely by drivers, so you need to understand the risks. For example, drivers of cars and motorcycles will not stop for you or get out of your way. And when you consider a typical main street in Saigon is clogged with so many drivers going willy nilly, that you're effectively dealing with a 15 lane crazyway with no apparent logic to it. People going the wrong way on the wrong side, whole families clinging to a small motorcycle, bicyclers peddling loads that would fill a truck. And no one cares what you are trying to do. The average space between moving vehicles was around 6 inches. So you venture out there with hope, fear, luck, and probably an unconscious death wish.
Ridiculously small coffee
My hotel had a sweet breakfast offering, but coffee is mission number one, and the rest of civilization will find it's place after that directive is satisfied. The coffee was good but their cups are so small! This is not espresso, just regular strength. I couldn't get back to my table before I needed a refill. I suppose this somewhat accurate schematic I did was not necessary, but at the time I just had to document it.
Three offers to come home and meet grandma (yikes)
I arrived at my hotel around midnight. It was a rather dirty, littered neighborhood clogged with motorcycles and loud clubs. Next morning I headed out on foot to explore. The Bin Than Market was my first destination, and not too far away. Full of everything from the fish market to clothing, food, trinkets, it gets clogged to the point you feel like you've lost the trail and are just bushwacking. But before I got there, I was exploring the little sidewalk alleyways that cut through the blocks. They were always interesting since you leave the busy streets and wander through darker corridors where people live. I saw women squatting over little stoves cooking fish, people preparing foods for market, slicing pineapples, working on motorcycles. Glimpses into open doors revealed the typical little shrine and often someone sleeping in a hammock. Looking up, tarps crisscrossed everywhere to offer shade from the sun. And then the inevitable motorcycles with their mile-high loads of everything tied on back, always came crackling and lurching through to somewhere.
The first place I stopped to sketch was a tiny corner store tucked away on one of these back alleyways. I attracted the notice of two women who came over and asked me more questions than a dating service would. They wanted to take me to meet their grandma and extended family, all who lived an hour out of town. I finally agreed to meet them later for a drink, and left with all the contact information from them one could wish for. It made no sense why they would want a stranger to meet the family, so I was careful to take a different way back. Then 30 minutes later guess what? Same thing, same vague story. I got out of that encounter more quickly only to happen on a third situation. She wanted me to come up to the 6th floor in some building to meet her grandma, because she was moving to San Diego and wanted to convince grandma that it was safe there. I told her I live in Seattle and know very little about San Diego's public transportation or safety record. But she wasn't deterred. So when she went to find her brother, I headed right to the Bin Than Market to get lost among the chaos there. In all honesty, I walked a lot day and night in Saigon, My Tho, Hue and Chao Doc and never once felt unsafe or in danger. And I was by myself. But I wasn't there to meet everybody's grandma!
Traveling on to the city of Hue on the Perfume River
I ended up doing a number of sketches around Saigon, as well as a couple watercolor sketches in my little moleskin book. After the Mekong Delta and a visit to Cambodia, I flew back to Saigon where I volunteered at a shelter in the outskirts of Saigon. They had me teach basic drawing to 165 kids. That meant teaching 5 classes a day of kids from 1st through 5th grades. It was so fun but tiring too.
After that I flew up to the city of Hue by the old DMZ, and resumed my travelsketch venture. Once I got the basic layout of the main roads, I rented a bike so I could more quickly get to different places. I even learned to turn left onto a busy street. For that insane maneuver, you cut over to the left side of the road, turn left skirting the curb, and then carefully move out straight into the oncoming traffic until you get back into your lane. It's reckless and dangerous, but that's the way they do it. The Vietnamese are such a gentle, kind people, yet their driving habits are more like a contact sport. In Hue I was so taken by all their incredibly beautiful pagodas. They are about the size of an average house, but fantastically decorated with each one being different than the others. I did do a sketch of one, but in general I find them too perfect and complex to try to draw. Symmetry is my enemy as a sketch artist. I want the uneven, ragged, lop-sided, falling down, lived in, organic side of things. They're more forgiving and make for hopefully more interesting drawings.
The kindness of strangers
I stopped in a neighborhood back street in Hue to draw a couple old houses. For me the challenges are to find first of all something that I really want to draw. Then I need a place to sit hopefully in the shade (it was so hot!). And I want to draw where I'm not disturbing people or drawing attention to myself. It's hard to concentrate with a crowd around me. After starting my sketch I heard a slapping sound. Thinking I was being asked to move along, I saw this woman signaling me to come up on her porch in the shade to draw. She brought me a cup of cool water, and brought her grandkids out to meet me. Then the woman across the street left her little shop with baby in tow to see what I was doing. They were genuinely touched that someone would stop to draw their little neighborhood. This happened many times. Once a guy on his motorcycle stopped, got down and looked carefully at my drawing, then up to study the building I was drawing, then back to my sketch. He finally shook my hand and rode off.
How would you like to be an electrician here?
On my last evening I had a couple Tiger beers at a little streetside café where I drew this power pole. This drawing is no exaggeration. It seems completely incomprehensible. How could you find a single line in this jungle of cables? It started to rain, and rain, and rain hard. When it stopped the water was a good 12" deep on the roads, making my walk back to the hotel carrying my camera, laptop, audio gear and sketchbook a risky proposition given the nature of the roads here.
I plan to make another trip to Vietnam in order to visit the northern part – Hanoi, Halong Bay and all those dreamy tropical rock outcrops in the water, and on to Sapa and the older rural tribes with their magical terraced rice fields. Then into Laos and on… I would recommend anyone to travel in Vietnam. It is friendly, accessible, very inexpensive, lively, and has some breathtaking scenery. And given the devastation it has suffered, I found it a very welcoming place.
To see a continuation of this trip into Cambodia, you can see my blog post here: SketchTravel in Southeast Asia - Cambodia.
It was wonderful reading this delightful blog, you have great talent!
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Thank you so much for featuring this post in your project.. I really appreciate it. Following you now.
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@dante31 Thank you. I went to the discord group but it is welcoming me as Bongoman with an old avatar pulled from somewhere, not my Steemit account. It asked me to create a new login with that name. I haven't done that since I don't want to mess up my steemit account. :(
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Wow. Just wow. I adore your turns of phrase. The way you see the world and the way you show it to us in your beautiful drawings. I loved every second of the ride you just took me on. What a wonderful talent you have. Both in words and pictures.
@onethousandwords Thank you so much for your kind words. I think sketching is a way to see the world that photography doesn't do, maybe because you spend more time in one place. I feel like the sketches and especially watercolors are a for me a mess and always fall short of what I hoped for. Then later when seen altogether and supported with written context, it all seems coherent and purposeful! haha... I am very happy you enjoyed it. And i followed you!
Thanks for following. It seems like you absorb far more of your surroundings by sketching rather than photographing