Peter Bergdahl's Personal Blog

Hanoi is both a beautiful city but can also be perceived as chaotic at times, especially the traffic in Hanoi.

I’ve made this short video that takes you from my home at the beautiful Truc Bach lake which is where John McCain was shot down during the Vietnamese was, passing through the presidential palace and the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum and finally arrived to the office in Dong Da district.

Hanoi can be messy and especially the traffic is terrible but Hanoi is also a very beautiful and romantic city with many lakes.

I’m blessed with a fantastic view over Hanoi where i can see both Truc Bach and Tay Ho (west lake) from my balcony. The sunsets are just amazing and I can see it almost every day.

This image is smoking fresh, just taken minutes ago from my balcony. I can still almost see this sunset by looking out from my window

Sunset over Truc Bach and Tay Ho

I stitched together two images into a panorama.

What do you think? Please let me know by leaving a comment below.

Walking around the lakes in Hanoi is an amazing experience, it’s so full of life. People are eating, drinking, walking, running and doing all kinds of exercises. Fitness is big business around the lakes in Hanoi.

I live around Truc Bach lake so i walked about 30 seconds from my home, sat down on a wobbly plastic chair at one of the local cafes lining up around the lakefront and ordered a fresh lemon juice.

One hour and two lemon juice later i had taken 86 images on people doing all kinds of exercises, plus a cock fight going on just a couple of feet from my wobbly plastic chair.

I’ll get back to the cock fight in a later post so in this post I’ll focus on fitness in Hanoi.

The first image is of a guy stretching while he looks out over Truch Bach.

Man stretching and looking out over the beautiful Truc Bach lake

Next image is of man doing bench press with weight of concrete.

Man doing bench press with weights of concrete

And finally an image of some guys trying to improve their fitness by doing push-ups on a bar.

Two guys doing push ups on a bar

In the next few days I’ll come back to the cock fight that pretty much took place in my knees. Pretty dramatic actually.

Hello World!

I’d like to introduce myself since this is my first blog post and the first time we meet (most likely).

Midwinter in Northern Sweden, Image Taken Noon time

I grew up just 1.5 hours drive from the arctic circle in northern Sweden with long cold winters and short but extremely beautiful and intense summers. I’ve seen the aurora (arctic light) so many times it needs to be really spectacular before i pay any attention to it. During the summers i could read a book at midnight without artificial light from a lamp. The downside of this place is that the winters and long and dark, dark, dark…

I was born the same year as the Rolling Stones played “I Can’t Get no Satisfaction” and Bob Dylan played “Like a Rolling Stone”. They were both on on the top 100 list that year. I have no brothers or sisters so i grew up as the only child in a small village of just a few hundred people. I lived at this place until i was 19 years old and had to move when i spent one year at the Swedish army. After my military service i moved on further south to take my university degree.

After university i worked for a few small and mid size companies for a few years and i did basically everything you can poke a stick at (supervision, quality audits, hardware design, software design, testing, procurement and sales).

After a few years at smaller companies i started working for a world leading telecommunication company and that was a lucky move from my side. I came there at the right time when cellphones just started to become popular. The growth and opportunities has just been staggering since than. Because it is a global company with presence in about 170 counties i gave me the opportunity to work in many countries all over the world.

The last 9 years i mostly spent working as a freelancer in Asia and I’m lucky because Asia is a fantastic place. The food is delicious, the weather is great and the people are friendly. At the time of writing this post I’ve worked for longer assignments in Japan (Tokyo), China (Guangzhou & Hong Kong), Cambodia (Phnom Penh) and Vietnam (Hanoi).

I’m happily married with an incredible woman I met in Sweden for the first time 15 years ago. She was born in Vietnam but moved to Sweden more than 20 years ago. Besides Vietnamese she is also fluent in Swedish and English.

Me and My Wife Relaxing At Kirirom National Park, Cambodia

My biggest interest is photography and all my traveling has given me great opportunities for photography. I have nearly all Canon lenses under the sun but i still use my old trusty Canon EOS 5D i bought in Hong Kong in December 2005. Occasionally I also bring out my 4×6″ Ebony large format camera which is just amazing but it’s unfortunately difficult to find the special sheet film it requires in most countries.

Photography is not just a hobby for me because i also sell my images through stock agencies. It’s a great extra source of income for me and pretty much as close to passive income as you can get. All i have to do is to take photos (my hobby), upload the photos to the stock agencies and passively collect my commission when my photos are sold. The stock agencies takes care of marketing, invoicing and everything else (i love it).

I love to play the guitar whenever i can because it’s like meditation for me. It makes me relax after a busy day or in the morning to prepare for a busy day. The two favorite guitars I own is a Gibson SG and a Fender Stratocaster. They are unfortunately both in Sweden so I have to “survive” without them.

Other interests I have are playing golf and ice hockey.

That’s pretty much it!

Please leave a comment below if you have any questions.