Vietnam, Thailand, Hong Kong and South Korea.

It's been a good couple of months. The main point of interest is that I did a stint of travel with my father and brother.

There was going to be a narrative for all this, but I always forget that blogger loads images backwards.
So, nevermind about that.

Click on the pics to make to view them good and proper, some are too damn small.

Vietnam is amazing, especially for someone who's interested in teaching history. Although they're still technically "the Socialist Republic of Vietnam" the country has been very capitalistic since the 80s.

The government still pretends to be communist and like most countries there's a good deal of nationalism. Going to museums and hearing the story from the otherside of American History textbooks was something that I always wanted to do.

The War Remnants Museum particularly interesting. It was opened by the government shortly after the war and focuses on the atrocities committed by the US in the war (for those of you who don't know your history or haven't seen a 'Nam film in awhile, the US did do some terrible shit during the war.) Of course it was one-sided propaganda, as most presentations of history are. History is written by the winners and the communist in North Vietnam won the war. The South Vietnamese Government that existed during the war is still referred to as "the puppet regime for the US imperialist." This is how the North Koreans have often addressed South Korea--but there are no Coca-Cola signs in North Korea. Anyhow, this was all fascinating for me.

We were in Saigon, which was officially renamed Ho Chi Minh City after the Communist revolutionary--but everyone still calls it Saigon. Some areas of the city had old propaganda reprints, for nostalgia and tourist I assume. This one is a bit creepy if you ask me.

A strange yet familiar language, eh? Some Westerns who wanted to make money and spread Jesus came over and in the 17th century and came up with the written language that the Vietnamese still use. Hence the Roman alphabet with lots of strange looking accent markings.

Not to sound like an xenophobic America, but spoken Vietnamese is really annoying. Everyone always sounds like they're pissed off and screaming.

These stencils were on the sides of most buildings but the numbers where always different. Strange.

Look at those powerlines. My god.

I've always wanted to drive a rickshaw (cyclo). I found a guy that seemed nice, had him drive me around for a few minutes and then hoped off and tried to explain that I wanted to drive him around and that I would pay for it. This is difficult to explain to someone who doesn't know English, but he was a cool guy and he let me have my way with his rickshaw. It was actually pretty easy to handle. They're fixed-gears with massive chains. The break is this lever above the back tire that you pull to stop. At one point he thought I didn't know how to break, got scared and yelled "STOPPP." I guess he knows a few words of English.

The wanna-be photographer in me always wants to take random pictures of kids on the street. Maybe that's not cool? I can't decided. I don't want anyone thinking I'm a pederast, but kids are really photogenic.

but taking random pics of JBW is fine, he's a little photogenic as well.

We were there on the last day of Tet, which is Vietnam's version of the Chinese New Year. Lot's of celebration in the streets. It was rad.

The music to the street performances was brilliant. A drummer would just have one huge drum and a really trashy cymbal. It kind of reminded me of the guy from Lightning Bolt.

It was difficult to really capture in a photo, but the street are literally filled with motorbikes. I've never seen anything like it. They were everywhere.

It was really common to see a family of four on the same motorbike. That's just how people get around in Saigon. Everyone wears helmets except for kids. I found this surprising considering that they had low powered mopeds, for the most part, and the strong desire that people everywhere in the world have to not protect their brain. Must be a strict helmet law in Nam. I'm not really sure why these kids have plastic bags over their heads. This seems like a dangerous way to protect one's children from pollution.

Stop lights and proper intersections are rare. You just kind of walk out into the sea of motorbikes and they go around you. It's really amazing that this works. My dad did get a small gash in his head after running into a lady who was driving around with a squid stand on her bike.

Revolutionary stars and Soviet hammer and sickles everywhere.

Right next to Coke and Calvin Klein adverts.

What else to say about Vietnam? uhh there were lots of people trying to sell opium, marijuana, prostitutes and bootlegs. They would drive up to you on motorbikes or walk into restaurants "Do you want some girls/drugs/books." There were also a lot of sleazy sex tourist and old guys who never left or came back after the war. No drugs or sex for me but I did buy a bootleg Lonely Planet for China . The entire $35 1000 page book was photocopied and sold for something like $8.

Also, I got a sick and got some weird rash on both my hands.

OK. Now on to Bangkok, Thailand.

Saw some kickboxing. For fighting music they had two drummers and a guy playing the snake charmer clarinet, which sounded very badass and chaotic.

We stayed in a hostel, which was really nice by hostel standards.

Elephants in the street.

This dude was taking a bath in the river and he really wanted me to take his picture.

Went to quite a few Buddhist temples. Extremely ornate.

I saw some teenage monks hiding out smoking cigarettes.

Buddha's toe.

In high school I had a picture of this statue on my wall. Not because I was a Buddhist but because it was something strange for a 14 year old to put up in his room. Stumbling upon the real statue brought back some memories.












I should have taken pictures in Bangkok of things other then Buddha statues.

It was an intriguing place. Hopefully I'll go back one day.
Without a doubt the backpacker hub of Southeast Asia.

They have a very old king who is the ceremonial head of their constitutional monarchy, kind of like the Queen of England. While military juntas come and go the king remains. He is on all the money bills. One bill has him with a camera, which Jeremy said was a Nikon, if I remember correctly. Point being, it was strange to see money that had a king with a camera around his neck on it.


OK now to Hong Kong. Remember this pics are in reverse order, so HK was out first stop.



First and foremost, this is the best money I've every seen, although it doesn't have a guy with a camera.

Of course it's not a cool as "Wedding Money" which has become a valued currencyamong 13 year olds in Northwester Seoul.

KILL MATT BRANDT. (on indefinite hiatus)

This guy was impressive. A very controlled and steady foot he has.

Hands down, the best neon sign I've ever seen.

Lots of signs, lots of people.

Including Bruce Lee.

Downtown HK from Victoria's Peak.

Went to this massive Buddha. It was cool but the outskirts made it feel like a tourist trap.

I do like any place that bans meat.





To get up there we took an crazy cablecar ride. It must have cost millions to construct this rig, which goes on for much longer than I can show in one piture due to the mountains and turns.

There are massive apartment complexes in Hong Kong. This structure alone must house ten thousand people. It was surrounded by similar buildings, which I couldn't really capture in one picture due to the horrible smog. Speaking of smog, if there's anyone who still thinks that a billion people driving cars and burning coal doesn't have any effect on the planet, you're wrong. Seoul has massive (and oppressively plain) apartment buildings as well, but not to the extent of Hong Kong.


There was a nastiness to the air that made it unpleasant to breath.

While I'm on a soapbox I'll bitch about this. If anyone thinks that irony is still a viable form of artistic expression or original thought... you're wrong, too. Here's some kitschy, corporate art of Hitler with a rose in his ear on the wall of a franchise sandwich shop as proof.

They got some hectic streets in Hong Kong.

There was this giant market with all this plastic crap. I was walking around, amazed by the absolute worthlessness of everything being sold. That is, until I saw the pink poop hat.

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