Well I'm back from my whirlwind trip of Vietnam... overwhelmed by the sights and sounds. We took over 6,600 photos between us. The D3s with the 28-300mm lens proved to be a winning combination for travel. We were constantly wrestling the camera out of each other's hands. With the D700 being treated like a poor cousin.
We arrived home this morning at 7am having spent Monday night on the plane from Singapore and Sunday night on a train from Sapa in Northen Vietnam, so I haven't really slept in a proper bed since Saturday night. My hair still smells of incense and woodfire smoke from the mountains of Vietnam and I can still hear the constant honking of motorbike horns ringing in my ears. It will take a day or two to settle back into the relative order of Sydney life and to the affluence of a western lifestyle.
Two days ago I ate lunch in a village hut. The floor of the main room was concrete and the meal was cooked on a wok over a fire pit dug into the dirt floor of the kitchen. The Hmong girl Ping who cooked for us is 28 years old. She has four children under the age of 10 and is six months pregnant with her 5th child. Her husband doesn't work, and she sells handicrafts in the local town to support her family. Her life extends from the village of Lao Chai to the nearby town of Sapa 7km further up the mountain. The only furniture in her house is a small wooden bed, a table and a couple of tiny wooden stools.
Since leaving the hospitality of her humble home, I have driven in the streets of Hanoi in a 1939 Vintage Citroen Light 15, flown in a Boeing 777 to Singapore and an A380 to Sydney and I have watched 3 in-flight movies. I bought Duty Free alcohol and have taken photos with a camera and lens worth $9,000. I have driven to my comfortable suburban home in my shiny red Civic Sports. Tonight I will luxuriate in a steaming hot shower and climb into a king-size bed and sleep soundly under a goose down quilt.
Sometimes I have trouble making sense of the world. I guess that is why I travel in the first place.