Village in the city

This is another photo from Ngoc Ha village in the inner suburbs of Hanoi. Amid high density housing you can easily find a small shop with nothing more than a few basic items on sale.

The backyard

The view from one of Hanoi's taller buildings into the courtyard behind a row of shops on Hai Ba Trung. I suppose people everywhere keep the shabby side in the back yard.

Harvesting

This family began harvesting on Sunday. Eight people altogether with the extended family roped in to assist. Sons and daughters, nieces and nephews came back from the city for the occasion. Four people per field completed 720 square metres each, threshed and spread the harvest out to dry in 6 hours. Then they all sat down to a feast and spent the afternoon sleeping. They said they would start on the next fields in a couple of days.

All day Monday and again today it has rained. There has been thunder too. No drying - it takes about 3 days to dry the grain in the sunshine - and I fear that the rest of the crop might be ruined as well. In any case they said the yield was relatively low due to storms in the past month. This can be a negative or a positive. If the rest of the region has experienced similar problems the price will be high and they'll recoup some of the losses in volume.

Heat of the afternoon

I've been flat out lately, driving out to the countryside early every morning to do interviews and not getting back until 12 hours later. All I have time for otherwise is to eat, shower and sleep. Today I'm at home taking a break.

I took this yesterday afternoon while we were interviewing the owner of the dog and kitten. It was pleasantly cool in the house, but fiercely hot outside. Even the cat had to move out of the sun after a short while.

The Dinh, Ngoc Ha

The older part of Hanoi is basically a series of villages - even if the village-like quality is fast disappearing. Ngoc Ha village, about 10 minutes from the city centre, has a dinh, though not half as grand as the one at Khuc Thuy that I've posted pictures of before.

Ngoc Ha village

This photo is the product of a walk I took this afternoon. The scene is close to the city centre, just off Doi Can, one of the main routes westward out of the city centre. Behind the rows of shops along the road is a maze of narrow alleys. If you find one that goes somewhere, you might come across this tranquil field of rau muong. Probably it won't last a whole lot longer as there's a sign up by the lake showing where the city authorities plan to build a road right through here. Then the lake edge will be 'beautified' with concrete and trees planted in rows.

Road repairs

Somebody had left a pile of broken bricks in the middle of the road. This would have been fine for the normal traffic of bicycles and motorbikes, but it created a major obstacle for our 4WD. So we piled out and did some temporary road works. Hopefully somebody else came along later and did a better job!

Means of transport

Another photo from the ceramics depot down by the river bank in Hanoi. The wire baskets on the bike will be loaded up with products for distribution all over the city. The blue and white tubs come from Dong Trieu. October-January is their big season because that's when people buy their cumquat trees for Tet.

Vegetable gardens on the river bank

These vegetable gardens would, in the past, have been planted only in the dry season when the water level had subsided, leaving behind a layer of fresh silt. Today, with the huge Da River dam upstream the water level is much more controlled and the annual flooding much less. That makes it unclear how long the fertility of these river bank gardens can be maintained. As on Bai Giua, the island in the Red River near Hanoi, there's a tendency for permanent settlement and cultivation on the sandbanks in the river.

Sidelines

All but the oldest of this four member farm household are engaged in this type of work making bags that are sold to a contractor for export. They can earn about a dollar a day from it if they work all day. So it's just extra pocket money really and for them, farming remains the main occupation because the income is at least more stable.

Above the entrance

Found above the front door of a house near where I'm staying. I have no idea what it means as I've never been able to take much interest in such things. Probably it either welcomes visitors or 'blesses' the house and its inhabitants. I've seen much less complex ones before - usually just the circular symbol in the middle of this one, which appears to be a sheet of laminated paper. It isn't without without humour - see the little cartoon faces above the characters in each corner.

Hoa quynh again

I went to a concert at the Opera House last night. My friend brought a bunch of these lovely flowers from his garden and gave us all one. The flowers opened during the concert, pervading our section with a lovely smell. I'm afraid mine got a little battered coming home in the front basket of my moto, but it was still lovely for a couple of hours.

The concert was in honour of Mozart's 250th anniversary year. For me, the highlight was the Vietnamese pianist Ton Nu Nguyet Minh who played the piano concerto in D-minor and then Rondo a la Turque for her encore. She was great.

Alleyways in the city

Off the main streets, the residential areas of Hanoi are a maze of narrow alleys dating from the days when the city was basically a collection of villages with the citadel at the centre. Houses used to be one or, at most, two storeys. Now they tend to be 5 or 6 storeys and the sun almost never reaches ground level. I'm staying in a room that looks out onto one such alley (narrower than the one in the picture - in fact only wide enough for two-wheeled traffic). About 5 years ago I stayed in the same room. Plenty of light came in through the window. Now every house opposite has gone up a few more floors and the light coming from the window is just a sort of gloom. I need the lights on all day. I'll have to make sure I go outdoors a lot to get my quotient of Vitamin D!

Bridge

This is a typical sort of bridge you find in the countryside. A couple of large bamboo poles slung across an irrigation ditch, requiring a bit of confidence to step on to!

Truc Bach lake at night

This is the lake in central Hanoi that John McCain fell into when he was shot down all those years ago. It's a fairly lively place at night these days - lots of small cafes, bars and restaurants around the edge.

Ba Hue

Village women of a certain age tend to blacken their teeth with lacquer. I'm not sure what the reason is - maybe some way of preventing the teeth from rotting. But it's a strange thing to see a broad smile full of black. Another habit of the older generation, especially women, is chewing betel nut which turns into a bright red mess that tends to stain the lips. I gather that it's just as addictive as tobacco, which tends to be the old men's drug of choice. I've never been tempted to try it.

I love this house. It was built in 1904, in a mixture of French and Vietnamese styles. The main living area is a huge, high-ceilinged room that is completely open at the front - onto a verandah facing a courtyard that is fenced off from the street by a high wall. The ceiling is in fact barrel-vaulted, like the roof of a cave. There are rooms off each side, but I haven't seen what they're like. They looked dark, though originally there were windows into the main room that would've allowed light in to the side rooms. Ba Hue has filled up the window space with storage boxes. Unfortunately, it's in a poor state of repair due to lack of funds, but she's hoping her children will eventually be able to restore it.

A contemplative cup of tea

The old man came to open up the dinh for us. While we were wandering about looking at things, he just sat down in the shade and fixed himself a cup of tea. A bit later his friend came to join him, but they didn't talk much, just sipped.

Farmyard chickens

Most farmers have a collection of these pretty chickens. The practice keeps them more or less self-sufficient in protein (meat and eggs). They are free ranging and seem to get on well enough with cats and dogs. They are seen to be a problem with regard to bird flu because they live in close proximity to people and kids especially are vulnerable if they are handling the birds a lot. On the other hand, transmission between birds is less likely if they are scattered between farms - one farm can get infected without the disease necessarily affecting other chickens in the area. Farmers in this particular village were vaccinating their chickens and ducks, but the scientific community regards this practice as somewhat problematical since it isn't known whether the virus remains dormant in the bird after vaccination or not. In other words, it is possible that wild birds coming into contact with vaccinated birds might still get infected.

Vietnam has been more successful than most of its neighbours in controlling bird flu and I think this is because it has a rather good public health system and a reasonably well-educated rural population. In light of the media coverage of bird flu at the time, this farmer asked me if I was afraid of his chickens and the answer was, well, no actually.


I planned to return earlier than this, but work piled up during my vacation! Plan B was to return yesterday - Vietnam's National Day - but internet problems interfered. So Plan C has gone into action! Hope I can keep it up from now on. Heading back to Vietnam on Wednesday, so there will no doubt be some new photos soon as well.