About.

The film published here is based on a family holiday movie. When I shoot the material, I didn't think of presenting it to a wider public. The takes were always done "by the way" and without stand: moving from one sign to another, not always easy for my family ("come on dad, we want to go on"), since it was sometimes a bit annoying - taking video needs a bit more time than taking a picture. But as I cutted the nearly six hours footage down to a 60 minutes family film, I started to think about doing something more with it, since - from my point of view - some of the shoots are quite nice. So I used my family cut and erased the family stuff as much as possible, added if advisable a shoot. Well, you will or have seen my wife and my daughters in some scenes - because I simply have no 2nd take (of the entrance or the doorway or whatever). However, I hope that it has no private coloring any more.

We spend our three weeks holiday in Vietnam in August 2010:
2 nights in Hanoi
1 night in Ha Long Bay
1 more night in Hanoi
3 nights in Hoi An
2 nights in Hue
2 nights in Saigon
1 night in the Mekong Delta
1 more night in Saigon
5 nights on Phu Quoc
1 last night in Saigon

On Phu Quoc we stayed in the Thanh Kieu Resort (not booked in advance, just took a taxi and pound the beach).

Since we had such a tight schedule, we took often the plane (Vietnam Airlines and Jetstar), and unfortunately it wasn't possible to go and visit Sapa in the north of Vietnam or follow the former Ho Chi Minh trail and discover more rural areas. Nevertheless we had a great time, met wonderful people, made a massive amount of great experiences and learned a lot.

Vietnam is a land in flux. The old city centre of Saigon became a building ground for skyscaper, along the beaches near Da Nang hotel companies invest in building mass tourism hotel complexes for innumerous guests. Besides the positive effects on the people and living standard I am a bit concerned of the vision of bulks of busses bringing thousands of tourists for a half a day trip to Hoi An each day. But as (I hope) you can see in the film, Vietnam is still and will be an outstanding destignation in Southeast Asia. We really enjoyed our time over there and discovered a land worth seeing.

I hope you like this website and the film, and I would be pleased about your note in my guestbook and/or a positive rating on YouTube.

 

Credits.

The only external material I used for this film is music:

- from Apples iMovie music library (royalty-free)
- from a CD with royalty-free music (Music4Flash, published in 2002 in Germany)
- some songs downloaded from jamendo.com under the creative commons licence:

Chapter 2: Ha Long
"Apophis 99942" by Axession; CD: Soundtracks

Chapter 3: Hoi An
"Violet Sisters" by ArLeAn project feat. Violet Sisters
Tunguska Electronic Music Society; CD: Tunguska Chillout Grooves vol. 5

Chapter 4: Hue
"Oversea" by Mike Verstu; CD: Take a breath

Chapter 5: Saigon
"Der Mr. Goldem" by Enrico Liverani; CD: Soundtrack

Chapter 6: Mekong
"Membrance" by K.D. Expression
"For Those Who Like Traveling Staying Home" by Electro-Nick Tunguska Chillout Grooves vol. 5
Tunguska Electronic Music Society; CD: Tunguska Chillout Grooves vol. 5

 

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