Vietnam

In April 1975, the fall of Saigon marked the defeat of the South-Vietnamese, after a long war. The communist North-Vietnamese army took over the South and reunified the country into a single Vietnam. The Americans enforced an embargo like the one on Cuba, and Vietnam closed its borders to the rest of the world. In April 1990, when the Vietnamese government finally reopened its borders to travelers, I was lucky enough to get there. I visited Vietnam twice, and twice I stayed around Ho Chi Minh City. That for me will always be Saigon. I was dreaming of these places as a child, reading stories of the old Indochina. I finally made it to Saigon and discovered that people have not forgotten that, a long time ago, East and West could live together and enjoy life.

I met some old people, who just burst into tears at the sound of the French language, remembering a far away past, which totalitarian political regimes and years in "reeducation camps" never managed to erase. The photographs will show for sure that I have never been closer and felt as welcome in all Asia as with the fantastic inhabitants of Saigon.