My wife and I just returned from another trip down to Hood River and the “Gorge”. She had some wind surfing lessons to finish up, while I used the opportunity to jump back on the water after a long multi-year hiatus and continue my desperate attempt at jibing and tacking with the rest of the neophytes. As is typically the case on this section of the Columbia Gorge, the winds were howling. Today I’m very sore…

But upon our arrival back in Seattle, I was anxious to continue editing some SE Asia photos and scan through images from our first destination outside of Saigon and the Mekong River delta region: Mui Ne. It’s a small village only a couple hours E – NE from Saigon on the South China Sea, and was supposed to be the ‘adventure capitol’ of Vietnam. Our plan here was simple: let’s spend 3-4 days learning how to kite surf, talk with the locals and ask other travelers about their adventures in Vietnam & SE Asia. Unfortunately our intentions were foiled by a departing typhoon, which just happened to take any and all wind with it.

So instead we used the opportunity to partake in the (mis)adventure of motorbike riding, by wandering up and down the coast, getting lost in the tiny alley-ways meandering through the older parts of town and pausing to photograph the large, colorful fleets of fishing boats.

Mui Ne didn’t have the amenities of Hood River, nor the hundreds upon hundreds of kite and wind surfers. There was no one saying dude and there weren’t any Naked Winery tasting rooms. And for just that reason, it was the perfect way to begin our ventures north into the rest of Vietnam.

More SE Asia photography coming soon…including central and northern Vietnam, Laos & Thailand images.

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Nothing can really prepare you for the streets of Saigon, Vietnam, where crossing the street is truly a risky venture. There really are no rules of the road here. Everything goes.

The below video clip was shot with a Canon G9, which was a great back-up camera by the way

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The Mighty Mekong. You may never have been there physically, but I bet you could conjure up an image pretty quickly if asked, maybe an exotic land where a thick jungle slips into a slow-moving mystical river, a place where tiny villages are hidden from everyone & everything. Well, toss in a lot of brown, a couple crushed up Coke bottles (ok, a lot) and hundreds of banging diesel engines. The Mekong is mighty, it’s very alive and in many places oddly beautiful; but in southern Vietnam, where the river fans out into a massive delta, reaching as far as Cambodia to the north and spilling into the South China Sea to the south, it’s a place where everything comes together, including lots of people.

Latte Anyone? Drinks on the Mekong River

After running away from Saigon as fast as we could (which was very slow given the horrendous traffic), we spent the next three days in the Mekong Delta region. Over the next couple days I hope to put together what images I can (video too but that’s coming later) of this fascinating region. Stay tuned…

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Located at an elevation of 4500 ft (1500 meters) Dalat, Vietnam, provides a much needed respite from the searing heat seen elsewhere in the country. It’s a land of rolling hills covered in towering pines, while hidden valleys reveal fields of artichokes and small rice-growing operations. It’s also one of the few spots in Vietnam (that we knew of) that offered the mountain bike geek an opportunity to enjoy some aerobic exercise, fresh air and a unique, locals perspective of the “vegetable capitol” of Vietnam.

Below are a couple mountain bike photos from our 3-hr tour with Phat Tire Ventures. We had two very friendly English-speaking guides accompany us, both of whom were quite impressed with our (or should I say Jeannine’s) ability to ride all the terrain.

Our guide, with water and food (lots of bananas) mountain Biking in Dalat, Vietnam

Phat Tire Ventures offers other mountain bike rides in and around Dalat, as well as in Hoi An, a town we visited later (photos coming soon) on the central coast of Vietnam.

Pine-covered hills felt almost like eastern Washington, not Vietnam

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