Hang Dao, Hanoi

An oldish photo - taken in the winter of early 2002 - of Hang Dao in the old quarter. I meant to repeat the shot on my last visit to see how things have changed, but I forgot. Maybe I'll have time next visit.

Roadside stall, Dong Trieu

This is Ms Loan in front of her shop. She rents this permanent structure on the footpath (presumably from the local authority). Actually her products are spread out along the path for about 50 metres and every night at 5.30 she must carry them all, including the large, heavy pots back to her lock-up. We went back the next day, but she wasn't around though all her stuff was laid out. It seems that all the shop keepers provide security for each other. And if a customer turns up while the person is out, a neighbour will do her selling for her and hand over the money later.

B52 junk pile

The tail section of the B52 that was shot down over Ngoc Ha village in May 1972. These days it's mainly a playground for kids - young boys who, from whatever country, always seem to be fascinated by weaponry!

Bullock cart

Bullock and pony carts are not such a common sight in the city - you're more likely to see them out in the countryside, though even there you're more likely to see tractor-drawn trailers. This one was spotted near the ceramics depot on the river bank.

Basket weaving group

These village women were weaving baskets for a contractor based near Hanoi dozens of kilometres away. It was a source of income to supplement that from farming which, for many households in the Red River delta, doesn't really supply enough to live on. They were paid by the piece and, although it didn't provide them with much money, they did at least get to work in a social environment. Their kids wandered in and out and the TV was on when we got there. I'm not sure what I think of handicraft industries like this. On the one hand, it's a chance to earn some cash and keep hunger at bay. On the other hand, it isn't exactly providing them with skills that could be parlayed into a better paid job in future. It seems to leave them stuck in the village on the margins of poverty. The contractor, on the other hand, was very rich.

More from the B52 museum

The mural encapsulates the main themes of Vietnamese nationalism in war time: modernisation and tradition, the unity of soldiers, farmers, workers, intellectuals and children. These days the themes are a bit different, modernisation is still there, but family life is much more prominent. Idealised mums and dads have replaced the four adult figures here. Indeed you're much more likely to spot an ad for Heineken or Hyundai than something like this.

Washing the dust off

Late afternoon in the backstreets of Hanoi.

Front gate

The front entrance to somebody's residence in Khe Tang village, Ha Tay province. I've no idea how old it is - but it's most likely to date from a more prosperous era, before the decline of the local silk industry around the 1930s. There is a handful of houses demonstrating more recent prosperity (since the economic reforms of the 1980s), but they are in a completely different style. I particularly liked the ceramic bowl as the centrepiece of the archway.

Pigs

I find pigs vaguely disgusting. They smell and are snotty. They also make a huge amount of noise. Often when we were sitting in some farmer's house there was apparent bedlam, something like a very drunken party, going on in the pig stye. But they're also curious animals. The piglets in this photo all scuttered inside when I came near, but within a minute they were peering curiously out at me, gradually getting up the courage to come outside again. You always get the feeling that they'd like to be friends. Even mama roused herself from her slumber to come over and check me out. She seems to be a crossbreed of a commercial pig type and the traditional, much smaller, sway-backed pigs of Vietnam.

Fishing apparatus

This structure lowers a large net into the water. When the fisherman is ready, he lifts it up and hopefully the net is full of fish. While he's waiting he has a nap or chats to his mates in the shelter. When I took the photo, he'd gone home to lunch. This particular river, however, seems rather unclean - it is also clogged with weed - so I suspect the catch isn't great.

Rice trader's house

The owner of the house is a small-scale rice trader who also grows rice, raises pigs and chickens and makes rice wine. She and her husband have put one son through university and two others are currently studying at colleges in other provinces. Most of the money goes on education fees.

A boat

Vietnam has all types of boats, but this one is fairly typical in the rural areas. Basically, you take a couple of bits of wood and paddle by hand along the canals or on the ponds. They're made of bamboo sealed with resin, very light and manoeuvrable. This one is on one of the small lakes in Ngoc Ha village, in the middle of the city.

Trung Thu

Today is the mid-autumn festival. The traffic was crazier than usual. Out in the village, however, it was business as usual. Some people are still harvesting, the threshing machines are going full pelt and the streets are increasingly covered with drying sweet-smelling hay. Fires are burning here and there - hay being turned into fertilizer for the fields. For lunch we had special dumplings made from sticky rice with a meat and egg filling.

Buying specs

One of the streets on the edge of the old quarter specializes in glasses. Mine were broken and tied together with a paper clip. The woman in the shop put them under some kind of machine and presented me with the numbers. They looked about right, so she took the order next door to be manufactured and we sat down to wait. Thirty minutes later I had a new pair of specs. The price $35.

Old quarter

Today the weather has been wet and gloomy. When you add the shade provided by the trees in the old quarter, you need to use flash to take a photo. At least it had stopped raining by the time I finished my shopping.

Mid-autumn

I normally don't pay much attention to festivals such as this. For starters I don't really like the moon-cakes. Second, I don't have family, especially kids, here to pressure me into buying and eating them. Trung Thu is late this year because every now and then in the lunar calendar they have to add an extra month. This year there were apparently two 7th months. Anyway the red boxes full of Banh Trung Thu add colour to the street scene.

A more optimistic day

Freshly cut rice. I took this a week ago on the bright sunny day when the farmers in the village we're studying began their harvest. The next day it rained, and the next. They had said already that the yield this year was down due to stormy weather and I guess it'll be down even further by now - what with more rain this weekend.

MIG 21

Underneath an old MIG 21 at the B52 Museum in Doi Can street. It looks to me more like a rocket than an aeroplance - a sort of cigar-shaped thing with short wings and an absolutely tiny hood for the pilot to look out from. It is surrounded by bits and pieces of a B52 that landed on the surrounding area of Ngoc Ha village after being shot down in May 1972.

My landlady was living in Hai Phong at the time. The 1972 bombing was more intense there and her school was destroyed - effectively ending her education at age 16. She was lucky not to be there at the time - a bit like those people who were late for work in the WTC on 9/11.