Dong Trieu ceramics

Dong Trieu is a district town on the road from Hanoi to Ha Long Bay that specializes in ceramics production. The producers sell most of their output to middlemen who come from Hanoi and other big towns. But many of them live quite a distance from the main road down narrow alleys that are not wide enough for a motor vehicle. They have to hire cyclists to transport their goods and supplies to and from the delivery vans up on the main road. I would guess each bicycle load is about 50 kg. The cost of a bicycle trip is about 15-20 cents, which means that it adds substantially to the costs borne by the producers and squeezes their profits. The local administration has suggested setting up a roadside market place to make collection by the long-distance transporters more efficient, but it wouldn't reduce the transport costs of producers. It's the ancient layout of the village that's the problem. People who have sites near the main road are eventually going to cut the more distant producers out of business - unless someone does some radical cutting and pasting of local landholdings.

The giant 'tea pots' in the picture are used for traditional medicine.