Backpack, camera and journey up and down the Red River

“It is not always possible to travel up and down a river. But if you can, do it once. Because it is not only a geographical journey, for journalists, it is also an opportunity to commit and express my passion for the profession” - those are the lines I wrote in the small notebook I brought with me when I started my journey up and down the Mother River.

- Those are the lines I wrote in the small notebook I brought with me when I started my journey up and down the Mother River.

One afternoon in August 2024, my colleagues and I went down the Red River with a compact backpack, a camera, a notebook, and a journalism topic assigned by the Editorial Board: "Conducting a series of articles about tourism along the Red River from the perspective and experience of tourists towards the Red River Festival in 2025". Writing about tourism, many people may think, is just telling stories for fun, but in fact, it is finding ways to exploit and convey messages about the development connection of lands with authentic language, images, and the most appropriate and responsible emotions. Not by car, not by train, we chose motorbikes to see more clearly the curves, the small paths running through the fields, the pristine banks and beaches, the hard-working people along the red river... and to stop whenever our hearts tell us to.

From Lao Cai - where the Red River flows into Vietnam, following the roads along the river, nearly 2 days passing Yen Bai, Vinh Phuc, Phu Tho, Hanoi , Hung Yen, Ha Nam, Nam Dinh, Thai Binh, we arrived at the place where the river merges into the ocean at Ba Lat estuary.

We had traveled nearly 400 kilometers. Then, one early morning at the river mouth, I actually stopped, chose a camera angle and sat for a long time, quietly looking into the distance. The sun rose from the sea, the fragile red light gradually spreading over the calm water. The wind carried a salty taste. The river, after its "thousand-mile" journey, quietly merged into the vast ocean. I choked up, moved by that moment, not only because of the beautiful scenery, but because I felt I was standing before something very real: the meeting between the river and the sea, between a small me and a journey with great responsibility.

Then we turned around. It was not an easy journey, taking photos, filming, meeting and taking notes as we went. There were days when the sun was scorching hot, we took a nap on a hammock at a roadside cafe. There were long stretches of road with only the sound of the wind whistling in our ears. There were also days when the rain covered the river, we could only take shelter under the roof of a dike cafe and silently watch the drops of water fall into the vast water. There were days when we had to spend hours looking for a place to stay because not all rural areas were bustling and convenient…

But we also got to see the winding roads through rice fields, fertile alluvial plains and pottery, weaving, and carpentry villages that still rely on red alluvium to continue to thrive. We experienced health tourism services at one of the most luxurious resorts in the mountain town; enjoyed royal bananas, braised fish in Chi’s hometown or eel vermicelli and Pho Hien specialties; met people who told us about life, about life, about history, culture and even simple loves…

There were times when we turned onto a dirt road just because we saw a bridge across the river ahead. That road led through a mud puddle so deep that we had to get off the bike and walk it, getting muddy up to our pants. But in return, we got a picture of Tan De Bridge on Highway 10, crossing the Red River with a ship passing by, the royal poinciana trees in the foreground as beautiful as a painting. It was wonderful the moment we suddenly stopped the bike because we saw a man rowing a basket boat in the middle of the river in Ba Lat, thin, with a hunched back, moving slowly as if he had been attached to the river all his life. The camera was raised in a hurry, just in time to capture a very ordinary but haunting frame. I remember the face of the woman who begged us to stay and have breakfast together in the fishing village of Cao Binh. Or the afternoon in Xuan Thuy National Park (Nam Dinh), a stork flapped its wings and flew up from the bushes, my colleague and I immediately raised our cameras, no need to say anything, no need to shout, just a glance at each other and we knew: "take a picture now".

Sometimes, a photo is all we need to capture the beauty of life. I remember the afternoon in Nom Village (Hung Yen), the sunlight falling on the shoulders of a woman cycling across the bridge, the smell of fermented bean paste in a house in Duong Lam Ancient Village (Hanoi)… In moments like that, I could not bring back any valuable sentences, but I gathered many invisible materials to create emotional and truthful writing.

After a long journey, we returned to Lao Cai on an afternoon when it suddenly started to rain, as if to remind journalists that every river has its rapids and every journey has its hardships. Looking at the flowing water, I felt light-hearted. Not because I had traveled far enough, but because I had just arrived at the right place.
Someone asked me: “Is it tiring to travel like that?” I laughed, not knowing how to answer correctly. The fatigue of a journalist does not lie in the steep or long journeys of thousands of kilometers, nor in staying up late at night editing sentences, but in the feeling of being in the midst of a vast sea of ​​information, how to maintain a true voice, how to make readers want to stop for a few minutes with a 9-part article, with hundreds of thousands of words.

I sat down to write about my journey in mid-June 2025, the month leading up to the 100th anniversary of Vietnam Revolutionary Journalism Day. We spent a full 10 months on that trip, and nine articles and dozens of videos and photo series were published. The trip was a nostalgic journey, helping me realize that there are articles that do not start with words, but with commitment, and do not end on paper, but in the hearts of readers. So I fulfilled my promise to myself - that I would write with the most genuine emotions.

Thank you river for giving us a journey. Thank you journalism for giving us a reason to travel. The river still flows, the writing career still lasts. We - journalists still have many trips to start. Not to find something new, but to listen to the familiar more deeply.

Source: https://baolaocai.vn/ba-lo-may-anh-va-hanh-trinh-xuoi-nguoc-song-hong-post403590.html