Back to the "big city" of Saigon.

12/20/11   

OK, so I digress a bit...The flight from Siem Reap was nondescript enough, but getting on the airplane wasn't.  Still in Siem Reap we had said our goodbyes and I headed off to check in only to find that I wasn't on the flight.  There was a mixup with the ticket so I couldn't get on the flight... so I called Sophera and headed back out to the drop off area and Sophera and crew took me back into town for one more night in SR. This was serendipitous since I really needed a little more time to wrap up some loose ends. The next day I easily made the flight and was off to the next chapter.

So, Back in Saigon I made my way to the Moto rental shop that I have become accustom to using while in Saigon. The woman pictured here remembered me and was happy to give me the long term rental discount as though I had never left from the last time I was here.  I even got the same bike as last time which is great because it's just generic and beat up enough to not attract attention while at the same time being very reliable.

I then made my way to a hotel I had stayed in the last time I was here only to find that it was now a tattoo parlor.  Hmmm.... So I asked if they still had rooms for rent and yes they did. I got settled in, hung out for a while, walking the strip and waited for Nick to call.  

Nick is the editor of the Word Magazine, a Viet/english Mag that he runs with his Viet wife Bao.  I had met them the last time I was here at a little spot in an alley way where he and his wife have Pho and Coffee each day (some of the best food in VN can be found in the most humble of places). 

An inter view of sorts...

After a while Nick called and I met him at a little local bar close to my hotel.  Over a beer we had some pleasant conversation, catching up on the last eight months and talking about what was happening in our respective worlds.  As soon as our glasses were empty he invited me to join him and a small group of colleagues at another bar just down the street. So, we got on our scooters and headed off to the next spot. Once there, more drinks were had and much more conversation about publishing, media and related topics. Photos were shown around (some of mine, some of Nicks and some of other photographers who work for the magazine), we talked about what we liked and there was a lot of talk about methodology and approach to communication through imagery and that sort of thing... yada yada yada...  it was all rather relaxed and organic.  Then it was on to the next place, an up scale place down town (very swanky) where we met up with Nicks wife Bao who had monopolized the entire end of the bar and was having drinks made for us from bottles that sat on the bar in front of her rather than the stuff from behind the bar. Each place we went to was more upscale from the last, this place would have been right at home in NYC or any other big city in the world.  OK so things start to get a little fuzzy at this point...it was pretty loud and the conversation was definitely more general though still media related. Suffice to say a good time was had by all.  I do remember somewhere in there Nick asking me if I would like to go with him to Cambodia to shoot photos for a story he was going to write, oh and something about helicopters... , and being propositioned by a couple of very attractive women who wanted to...well... I did decline.    After the club I followed Nick who guided me back to my hotel and I called it a night.  The next day(worst hangover ever) I got a call from Nick wanting to know if I really wanted to do the shoot in Cambodia and we made plans to go that following week.  What a hoot!!!