It was my first time shooting street photography outside the Philippines, and Vietnam left me in awe. Everything felt different—the culture, the food, the energy.
First stop: Hanoi. A chaotic paradise of narrow houses and winding alleys, the aroma of street food lingering on every corner of the city, and motorcycles swarming the roads like a stampeding herd, horns blaring. Reminds me of the movie Everything Everywhere All at Once. What I felt in Hanoi was how I felt when watching that movie: a disorganized maximalist harmony of different lives.
Hoi An—a bustling little town with well-preserved architecture. Tourists fiddle through its streets, looking for local bites to try or handcrafted trinkets to tuck into their luggage. I hopped on a Japanese bike to explore the small Vietnamese town, veering into unpaved alleys, peeking into makeshift ateliers, curious about what the locals were crafting.
Smoke fills Saigon’s streets as the Viets fire up their barbecues on sidewalks-turned-makeshift cafés. Right beside them, modern restaurants serve elevated takes on local dishes. I prefer the former. There’s just something about Vietnamese street food that beats any restaurant—maybe it’s how they cook, measuring ingredients by instinct, pouring heart into every dish. Or probably it’s the MSG.
Luxury malls with grand architecture, Graffiti sprayed over gray cement walls, communist flags proudly draped across the city—I never imagined communism would look like this.
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