It’s been an overcast kind of month here in Hanoi. Slate skies and a maudlin mien. And then yesterday I found out that my apartment building is being razed to make space for a bigger, better, taller, newer, pricier complex. So we’re out. Along with our local market, the rest of the residents and probably everyone else along the alleyway out back. Another small enclave of culture cleaned out to make way for the future.
And so it was with a heavy heart that I set out Saturday afternoon to take some photographs around the Old Quarter in Hanoi. I needed to leave the house, and even though I didn’t feel like bringing my camera, I knew it would be for the best. It was a black & white kind of day. I kept my distance. I paid more attention to the chaos and order in things. I hung around the market and just took life in. I didn’t pry. I left people alone. And here the end result is some sort of sad poetry that I’m not entirely unhappy with.
from swerve of shore 