One Hour Street Photography in Bac Lieu, Vietnam

The photos posted here are from Bac Lieu where I made My Two Donations To The Make A Wish Foundation Of Vietnam; meaning I got pick pocketed by a 14 year old Vietnamese girl and extorted by the Police within 24 hours.

These are some of the pictures I took in the first hour of walking around (and only time I did photography) even though it was immediately obvious that this place had probably as much potential as the fantastic Soc Trang, Vietnam.

The town was another non-touristy place great for street, people, kids and travel photography and my money taken was not (directly) the reason I decided to leave after one day.
After I received my possessions (minus about 260 dollars missing and 37 dollars “police gratuity”) and signed some paperwork I thought I finalized my business with the local police.

Not so. The next morning I was woken up by a policeman wanting something from me which he could not explain due to his lack of English. Just in case it was more money I decided to depart this fine town.

Now a few photos; one great building can save the day; I shot dozens of pictures of this building and the wall next to it:

Is it a lion? Is it a tiger? Is it a liger? I am not sure but the wall was like a street museum:

A wider shot of the above animal head:

Men Working in the harbor, it was getting close to sunset; there was nice light:

Kids of all ages do work in Vietnam; boy cleaning sugar cane:

One of the many crazy poses and faces this silly kid showed to my camera in the harbor:

If I could get 160 Vietnamese dongs (a penny) every time a proud mother shoves a baby in front of my camera … well, in this case it worked out; the baby is not crying and very photogenic:

This was a funny sight to me but I had a hard time explaining why to the people around me. Outside this building there were heaps of huge sacks piled up, when I looked inside they were stacked almost wall-to-wall and up to the ceiling leaving just a narrow path to walk in and out of the house.
The place was completely overflowing; a man came up to me ripping one sack open showing me it contained large plastic jugs (extreme recycling?):

Lost bag laying on the street; took the photo because it just looked interesting:

Some kid pointed at this woman suggesting me to take her photo (people often joke about having their friends’ or relatives’ photos taken) so I did but only when I looked at the picture on the computer I noticed her strikingly strong features:

It is unfortunate that a place with so much potential received so little time; it is worth revisiting in the future – well, maybe :)

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