Bowermaster, Jon. Descending the Dragon: My Journey Down the Coast of Vietnam. Washington D.C.: National Geographic, 2008.
I knew that I would learn fascinating things when I read Descending the Dragon. I didn’t expect to learn details like the city of Hanoi had a french designer or that none of the buildings could be higher than Ho Chi Minh’s mausoleum. And speaking of Ho Chi Minh, visitors can traipse past his embalmed body today despite the fact he died 44 years ago. His body is re-embalmed every 2-3 years. Freaky.
This is the journey of traveler Jon Bowermaster. He is used to traversing the globe solo, on assignment for National Geographic and The New York Times (to name a few). The adventure in Descending the Dragon is unlike any other. Bowermaster and a small team of four take to kayaking down Vietnam’s northern coastline. Seeing Vietnam from the water was a completely different experience for Bowermaster. He gained a much different perspective of the fishing communities and beach dwellers than if he had approached them from land. As much as he would have liked to have traveled the entire coast by water government restrictions forced him and his crew to travel by land on occasion. Probably the most poignant moment in the book was when Bowermaster was visiting a pagoda and met a monk who desperately wanted to tell him something but couldn’t out of fear of betraying the government. Later Bowermaster is told, “Be careful what you use of our words, our faces – because, if the government gets wind of even a small complaint made by us, you will be gone from here and you will have no idea what happens to us” (p 129). It is a land of beautiful contradictions.
The photography of Rob Howard is spectacular. While the Vietnamese loved to have their photo taken and were ready for him with a pose Jon was able to catch them in candid portraits. None of the images look contrived or staged. Howard has a fascinating website detailing his work.
Reason read: In celebration of my birthday because Vietnam has always fascinated me. Yay.
Author fact: Jon Bowermaster has his own website (of course). He sells his kayak adventures on dvd and posts blogs about really cool things (like fracking).
Book trivia: As I mentioned earlier, the photography for Descending the Dragon was by Rob Howard. Spend some time on his freaking amazing website. I could have spent all day clicking around it.
BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the chapter called “Water, Water Everywhere” (p 274).
~*LunaSea*~ 