H Ô I • A N || Inescapably beautiful. Walking down the streets of Ancient Town the sensoria is overwhelmed with colors, smells, languages, tactile sensations, and a beauty that almost feels manufactured.

Mopeds packed 3, 4, and 5 passengers strong, balancing every imaginable thing possible or impossible that can be carted on two wheels.

Meats, rice, noodles, fish, all spread out on ground mats or stands alongside the street. Ancient mamas squatting and swatting flies away.

Fat little children (I call them Buddha Babies) running around the street in frilly frocks and suits, holding onto their mothers with one hand and a Bánh Dúa (coconut cake) in the other. Powder sugar covering their faces.

Shops of every imagination - leather, tailoring, purses, clay works, baskets, coffee, salons, model shops… miscellaneous dogs sleeping in the sun.

An old woman: toothless, wrinkled, skin turned hardened to leather by decades working in the rice patties - now she sells small clay whistles in a doorway. She is not beautiful, but if beauty is in the eye of the beholder, then she is beautiful to me.

Colors, vibrancy, smells, noises… it’s glorious. I’m in love with Vietnam and the people.