Dream Trip 2009

Great Travel Moment

What is this place? It claims to be Communist, yet there are stores, restaurants, hotels, and souvenier shops everywhere you turn. Money changes hands for everything -- taxis, food, housewares, clothing. There are imported cars and there are rickshaws. I see Communist flags and I see privately operated factories. It is truly a schizophrenic country. My most memorable moment, captured in this photo, is of a local woman navigating her way through traffic with her baskets of produce balanced on a pole across her shoulders. North Vietnam is a strange and interesting place, indeed.