"When I got out of a car in a Thai village north of Dien Bien Phu, both adults and children screamed and ran away in panic as if they had just seen a demon," the former German teacher recalls of his first trip to Vietnam.
Only after the guide introduced him to the village chief did residents gradually return and gather around the stilt house to talk.
Between 1991 and 1993, Grumpe spent 83 days traveling across Vietnam, documenting the country's early postwar transformation and the beginning of its economic opening with thousands of photographs.
At the time, Vietnam was in the early years of the Doi Moi reforms, and tourism infrastructure remained underdeveloped while foreign visitors faced strict travel restrictions with special permits required for destinations outside established tourist routes.
Grumpe's first journey began in Ho Chi Minh City and took him through Da Nang, Hoi An, Hue, Hanoi, Ninh Binh, and Ha Long Bay before continuing into northern provinces.
