travel photography and writing by Darrell Chaddock

Detroit, 2010

Posted on April 17, 2016February 1, 2022 by Darrell Chaddock

Detroit: Blighted But Also Blessed

My parents used to live close to Detroit on the Canadian side of the border in a town called Sarnia. That’s not where I grew up. It’s just where my parents retired to.

On one of my annual visits to see my parents I thought it would be a good idea to travel the short distance to Detroit and spend a few days there. Why not? It was just over the horizon after all. I booked a hotel online and headed across the border. This was on a Sunday in March, 2010.

After I was checked into my hotel I grabbed my camera bag and went out to have a look around. Downtown Detroit was deserted. I saw more cars than people, and I didn’t see many cars. I could walk for blocks without seeing any sign of life. Many of the buildings were shuttered and desolate. Even many of the stores that appeared to be still in business were closed.

I walked over to Woodward Avenue, the main north-south roadway. The street was mostly desolate but I saw a restaurant and bar called the Hockey Town Cafe that was open and I could see some people inside. Next door was a grand old theatre called the Fox. It was quite imposing and obviously still in operation. Even here though it was largely barren of other people. The occasional car or pedestrian would pass. Of the few people on the street some appeared to be homeless.

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Thailand, 2009

Posted on April 14, 2016February 1, 2022 by Darrell Chaddock

Thailand Enticed Me Back For Another Visit

My first visit to Thailand was during the winter of 2008. The second visit was in September, 2009. I had believed that it wouldn’t be much hotter in late summer than it was in the Thai winter because it had been so scorching then. That assumption was incorrect. Every photo of me from that second Thai outing shows me drenched in sweat. Very becoming. Temperatures often exceeded 40 degrees Celsius.

Bangkok was especially torrid and muggy. The humidity was ghastly. I had never appreciated air condition so much before.

September also falls within the rainy season in Thailand. When it did rain – which it did often – it was came pounding down in torrents. You don’t experience rainfall like that outside of the tropics. Before long though the rain would stop and it would get sunny again. Then I’d start sweating again.

One of the drawbacks of being an avid photographer is being cursed with a stubborn insistence on lugging around a lot of camera gear where ever you go. No little compact shooter or smart phone will do. When I find myself traveling in a very hot place I sometimes can’t help but feel like a pack animal after carrying my camera kit around in the blistering heat for a while. But there have been occasions when I did leave my gear behind and ended up missing opportunities for getting some good photos. One night in Saigon I was sitting at an outdoor table at a restaurant and some young Vietnamese boys put on a fire-eating show on the street to wheedle some tips from the patrons. They were quite fearless and put on quite a spectacle They could spew flames out of their mouths and stick burning wands down their throats without harming themselves at all. Despite their young age they were clearly comfortable with what they were doing. It was quite electrifying to see. What fantastic images I could have captured with my camera if I had it with me.

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Beijing, 2009

Posted on April 12, 2016February 1, 2022 by Darrell Chaddock

Beijing: Very Modern and Very Ancient All at Once

Beijing is a huge city with nearly 12 million inhabitants. However because of it’s extensive and modern subway system it’s easy, and affordable, to get to most places of interest easily and quickly. It’s also helpful that all the street and traffic signs are in English as well as Chinese.

I made a stop over here on the way to, and coming back from, Thailand. I had never been to Beijing before but having been in a number of cities in the developing world I arrived here with certain expectations about what I would encounter. I had assumed that the city would be dirty. Carefree littering is a hallmark of life in the third world. But Beijing was not dirty at all. Well, the air was definitely not clean. I also thought that street-food carts would be virtually everywhere. There are almost none in Beijing. The only ones I saw were at the Donghuamen Yeshi Night Market near Wangfujing Road, the place to go for high end boutiques and designer labels (not my thing at all, I went for the food). I was also surprised by how much green space there is in the city. Behai Lake and Houhai Lake for example are surrounded by expansive, leafy grounds that provide a soothing escape from the scramble of the metropolis. The grounds of these parks are very well maintained and orderly, and no, there’s no litter in sight.

I was very impressed by some of the modern architecture there. Some of it is really stunning. The CCTV building is very eye catching since it looks like it shouldn’t be able to avoid toppling over. The train station in Terminal 3 of the Capital City airport is one of the most appealing modern constructions I’ve ever seen. It has a massive vaulted ceiling that’s mostly clear glass. The floor of the station is polished stone so it reflects the light coming through the ceiling.

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Vietnam, 2008

Posted on April 9, 2016February 1, 2022 by Darrell Chaddock

Vietnam: The Emerald Green Land in South East Asia

My trip to Vietnam began in the town of Chau Doc, near the Cambodian border. I arrived by boat from Phnom Pehn Cambodia.

It was incursions into and around Chau Doc by the Cambodian Khmer Rouge regime that led to Vietnam’s invasion of Cambodia in 1979. The Khmer Rouge crossed the border several times to chase down and kill people who had fled Cambodia to escape their genocidal madness. Many Vietnamese were also murdered in these raids.

While in Chau Doc I went to see a fish farm on the Hau Giang River. I hired a small boat captained by a kid about 13 years old and he ferried me out to some houses anchored to the river bottom. These houses were on wooden stilts just above the river’s surface. Inside each house was a trap door in the floor. One of the home owners opened a trap door and I could see the river’s surface below. After he tossed a scoop of fish pellets into the water dozens of fish came roiling to the surface with their mouths agape. Under each of the houses in the river were nets crammed with fish.

Saigon can be nerve shattering. I’ve never seen a city so abuzz with motorcycle traffic. They’re everywhere and their riders have little regard for traffic regulations. It’s actually quite dangerous in Saigon because when you are walking anywhere motorcycles can seem to come out of nowhere bearing down on you fast enough that you really have no time to react. I came very close to getting hit by one a few times. I wasn’t distracted during these occasions. In fact in each case I was trying to detect as much around me as possible to avoid a collision and almost got run over anyway. Crossing a street, any street, in Saigon takes audacity. Sidewalks aren’t safe either. When they’re not clogged with parked motorcycles, people on motorcycles are using them for speedways. The only time I felt safe from motorcycles when I was outside is when I was on the back of one being taxied somewhere. In Saigon there’s always someone around who’s willing to take you where you want to go on their motorbike in exchange for a dollar or two.

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Cambodia, 2008

Posted on April 3, 2016February 2, 2022 by Darrell Chaddock

Cambodia: From the Marvels of Angkor to the Horror of Toul Sleng

Cambodia was the second country I visited during my first trip to South East Asia. I entered the country from the Isaan region of Thailand. Isaan sees relatively few foreign visitors. I guess because of this, there were no onward buses to destinations further into the country after I crossed into Cambodia. The Thai people that had been on the bus from Surin with me were traveling to Cambodia to buy cheap goods for sale right on the border. The number of people crossing here that needed some public transportation to elsewhere was too small to warrant the presence of a bus station or even a bus stop. I hadn’t reckoned on that.

A Cambodian border guard told me that if I wanted to continue on right away I would have to take a taxi and he offered to call me one. And he did.

About 100 meters into Cambodia the asphalt surface came to an abrupt end and a very rutted dirt road began. The taxi driver had to go slowly as the car wallowed from side to side and up and down over the hillocks that were the road. Filthy shoe-less children with barely any clothes were playing in the fields. The houses – huts would be more accurate – were made of bamboo and straw and in a dilapidated state. One of these huts had been burnt to the ground. Thailand was the land of milk and honey compared to this. I certainly had not seen such depths of poverty there.

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