My Protanopic Life

Saturday was a pretty lazy day. Tien and I were still recovering from our motorbike trips and I swore off ever going long distances on Tien's scooter ever again. We did, however, plan to head north from Saigon to Mui Ne and Nha Trang the following day by bus, and hopefully also by train.

We stayed around the house all day, but that evening we went for a ride around town at sunset. I brought my camera gear and photographed some boats in the river. We turned this way and that while riding through her village, going along waterways and over bridges, waving to the folks on the boats I was photographing and to the locals we passed who beamed at the sight of a white guy.

Right before dusk I spotted a big rice paddie that hadn't been harvested, the same one I had photographed tien at a few days earlier but on the opposite, remote side. There are so few places in Tien's village where you can get right next to the rice paddies and I was excited to find such a great spot. On top of that, Tien said she had never been there. I was happy to have shown tien a beautiful new place in her own village. Unfortunately the light was dark and I had no tripod so I couldn't take the photos I wanted, but I did the best I could. We sat a minute and enjoyed the vast green before us, then turned on our dirt path and headed back home.

This neighborhood was distinctly different from most of the places she had taken me. It was pretty hard to get to and far from the main roads. Most of the houses had open front walls, giving you full view into the living rooms where people were watching TV, playing with their kids, praying. Many of the houses had only a fence, not hard steel locking gate. Some had only glass windows on a locking door. I liked this neighborhood, it was like a tiny remote village tucked just 1km off the main road.