Pre-Christmas Vietnam. A Photo Stroll in Downtown of Hue City

Look at this winter challenge:

It's coming! 🥶🥶 Not tropical at all! I have to buy another pair of jeans, a couple of shirts, boots... or to leave. Choosing the latter, gonna migrate to the south. Probably, to Tuy Hoa City. Never heard? Me neither. Came across it recently while scrolling the map. It might be lovely... I will know in a week or so.

In the meantime, I continue strolling with a camera when it’s not too wet in Hue. Last time, it was a late-afternoon and evening walk to downtown, in search of Christmas decorations and street scenes in new pre-Christmas scenery. Sharing.

Vincom Plaza was one of the earliest to start the thing. Just to attract people's attention. This shopping mall stands on a large intersection so its Christmas tree looks like the top fur in the city. However, locals only pass the place on motorbikes being not interested in brand shops and goods. The shopping mall works mostly for foreigners so it's quite deserted in rainy chill December.

Grab app's motor-taxi driver waiting for a foreigner, by the entrance to this almost empty shopping mall. Doing nothing for hours.

They often wave their hand to stop you and offer a ride (although it should work the opposite way).

Large hotels keep up with shopping malls. 4-star Eldora Hotel is in the image above, with rooms for around $100 a night.

5-star Indochine Palace Hotel.

And, nope, that's not where I stay. I pay only 4$ for a bed in a dormitory at Melody Riverside Homestay; free breakfast included. But no worries, most time, I have a whole floor with a table and sofa for myself - few travelers in this rainy time. 🤠

Another Christmas tree, this time by a convenience store. Many restaurants and bars do the same hoping to attract people into their half-empty premises.

But most people keep living their lives without changes: Vietnamese New Year is lunar, and it'll be not that soon, on 29 January 2025.

Taxi drivers at a rest stop.

Sausages for sale with no signs of Santa.

But look at this actors:

Once children's favorites, it looks, like they are now working out their last season before a well-deserved rest...

Here, I was entering a hypermarket called Go. I knew there were decorations there. However, nothing too special except this character:

A veteran-snowman with the nose eaten away by... some disease, probably; will not remain for long either at this position, the last season, sure. Not without a charm, isn't it?

Back to outdoors.

Getting dark, illumination is turned up.

I wanted to photograph a new Christmas angle of Hue streets.

And probable I got a couple of good pics.

Nothing about Christmas here but I like the shot.

Another hotel with a security man walking around doing nothing.

People often mention that some forms of photography are art and no matter what you shoot it's creativity but nobody mentions how close photography is to spirituality.

The ego dissolves and you begin to see beauty where you recently did not notice it.

Unlike other forms of creativity, photography is not contemplation of the flow of self-expression as in the case of music, painting, literature, and sculpture, but an active search for beauty in the surrounding world. Unique.

This was the set of photos I collected while walking around Pre-Christmas Hue. Hope you liked it, thank you, and cheers!

More Southeast Asian adventures to come, stay tuned! Check out my previous posts on my personal Worldmappin map.

I took these images with a Nikkor 50mm f/1.8G on a full-frame DSLR Nikon D750 on December 10, 2024, in Hue, Vietnam.