Vietnam: one day at a time

Random photos taken in Vietnam

12.11.06

Institute of Tradtional Medicine

I once visited this place with a friend who was visiting the doctor. The doctor in question can do all those things like diagnosis from reading your pulse, but on this occasion both the examination and the medicine prescribed were disappointingly (for me) of the Western type. Vietnamese tend to use the traditional sort for minor or chronic complaints. They never recommend it for anything acute or for anything that you need to clear up quickly. I was once recommended to a traditional practitioner for my frozen shoulder. I had three weeks of acupuncture, massage and black, foul tasting liquid. My shoulder was certainly fixed, but I wondered if it couldn't have been done faster and with less pain!

11.11.06

Urban alley

This alleyway is actually the main street of one of Hanoi's urban villages. Most of the village alleys are narrower than this. It's easy to see why the motorbike has taken off as the main means of motorized transport. A few of these alleys have been widened, but the process involves demolishing houses, or parts of them, so it is difficult to achieve over the short run. While the narrowness of the backstreets means that the relatively few arterial roads tend to be clogged with traffic, it also makes for a more peaceful atmosphere inside the village.

7.11.06

Making noodles 2

A couple of months ago I posted a photo of stage one in the cooking of mien noodles. The second stage involves rolling the cooked mixture up as shown and transferring it to a flat frame made of bamboo that is then set out in the sun. The cooking part is hot work and the weather was hot too.

5.11.06

Family altar

Everyone who has a dead parent or two has an altar in the house. Usually there are a couple of mug shots on either side - in between a small platform where incense is lit and food placed for the ancestors. Wealthier people go in for a much grander scale and you tend to find money, flowers and other paraphernalia on the altar as well. In Khe Tang the mug shots were replaced by these much more charming digitally doctored photos in which only the face is a representation of the real person. Some of the pictures were even prettier than this one, but I didn't want to go around snapping everybody's family altar, so this will have to do as an example.

4.11.06

Water and mountains

These are the two main components of Vietnamese legend, which isn't surprising when you're passing through a landscape like this. In the beginning there was a mountain fairy and a water dragon who married and produced 100 sons who, in turn, spawned the Vietnamese people. I dunno, but I suppose they made the women up out of their spare ribs or something. It always bemuses me that Vietnamese family trees never have any women in them.

3.11.06

Delta landscape

It's hard to keep up this 'one day at a time' thing!

Autumn is everybody's favourite time of year in northern Vietnam. I've never found anyone who thinks otherwise. It is the only time of year when the weather is moderately decent - a couple of months when it's not too hot, not too cold, not too humid and not raining. Moreover, the fields are glorious gold. The checkerboard pattern comes from the different varieties that ripen in sequence, giving a window of about two weeks in which the harvest must be completed.