Vietnam: one day at a time

Making noodles 4

2007-02-04T13:54:00.000+11:00

Once the stuff has been stretched over the frame it is put out to dry, usually in the street where, apart from smelling something awful (like vinegar, very acidic), it also collects dust, exhaust fumes, etc. I don't know what kind of colouring is added to make this bright orange colour (they call it 'gold').

Making noodles 3

2007-02-03T19:33:00.000+11:00

I've decided to be more thematic and less random. I'm losing track of which pictures I've posted and which ones I haven't!

So here is the 3rd step in the manufacture of mien. Last time I showed the cooked mixture being rolled up. Next it is stretched over a bamboo frame. At this stage it has a fairly rubbery texture, so is easily stretched to cover the whole frame.

Matches

2007-01-02T22:09:00.000+11:00

The manufacture of matches was the first manufacturing industry established in Vietnam by the French - in the 1880s or '90s, I forget exactly. There were two factories: one in Hanoi and one in Vinh. Under central planning the factory in Hanoi was renamed Thong Nhat (Unification) and contines to produce matches to this day. So, outside the traditional handicraft sector, it is Vietnam's longest established manufacturing enterprise.

Centrally planned matches were not so great. The problem was the red stuff, which had to be imported. Poland was a major supplier, but often would not sign contracts because the chemical (sulphur?) could obtain higher prices on the capitalist world market. At world market prices, the Vietnamese government couldn't afford to purchase a sufficient supply. It was not uncommon, therefore, for Vietnamese matches to be dipped in so little of the stuff that they could not ignite. Moreover, the wood is brittle (still). If you strike them too hard they just break. They come in boxes of about 45, but until recently probably only 20-30 were actually usable.

The new Lenin Park

2006-12-29T17:23:00.000+11:00

Every time I go into the city from my abode in Hanoi, I pass this little park. Since the old Lenin Park in the city south has changed it's name, this one has unsurprisingly acquired the name. The message written in flowers says 'Ha Noi - Thanh Pho vi Hoa Binh' (Hanoi - City of Peace). I haven't noticed it before - perhaps it was put there for APEC or, more specifically, George Bush.

Institute of Tradtional Medicine

2006-11-12T15:51:00.000+11:00

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!

Urban alley

2006-11-11T17:20:00.000+11:00

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.

Making noodles 2

2006-11-07T21:55:00.000+11:00

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.

Family altar

2006-11-05T18:14:00.000+11:00

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.

Water and mountains

2006-11-04T21:26:00.000+11:00

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.

Delta landscape

2006-11-03T21:46:00.000+11:00

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.

Hang Dao, Hanoi

2006-10-30T21:24:00.000+11:00

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

2006-10-29T21:56:00.000+11:00

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

2006-10-25T17:23:00.000+10:00

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

2006-10-19T19:15:00.000+10:00

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

2006-10-17T21:02:00.000+10:00

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

2006-10-16T22:21:00.000+10:00

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

2006-10-15T18:40:00.000+10:00

Late afternoon in the backstreets of Hanoi.

Front gate

2006-10-14T19:05:00.000+10:00

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

2006-10-13T19:57:00.000+10:00

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

2006-10-12T18:13:00.000+10:00

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

2006-10-10T01:21:00.000+10:00

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

2006-10-08T02:34:00.000+10:00

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

2006-10-07T01:08:00.000+10:00

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

2006-10-06T01:02:00.000+10:00

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

2006-10-04T20:23:00.000+10:00

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

2006-10-03T19:50:00.000+10:00

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

2006-10-02T13:55:00.000+10:00

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

2006-10-01T19:58:00.000+10:00

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.

Village in the city

2006-09-30T16:51:00.000+10:00

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

2006-09-28T14:14:00.000+10:00

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

2006-09-26T19:20:00.000+10:00

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

2006-09-25T14:11:00.000+10:00

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

2006-09-18T18:34:00.000+10:00

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

2006-09-17T22:30:00.000+10:00

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

2006-09-15T14:55:00.000+10:00

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

2006-09-14T16:44:00.000+10:00

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

2006-09-13T20:02:00.000+10:00

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

2006-09-12T19:52:00.000+10:00

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

2006-09-10T19:42:00.000+10:00

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

2006-09-09T23:47:00.000+10:00

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

2006-09-08T20:31:00.000+10:00

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

2006-09-08T00:41:00.000+10:00

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

2006-09-06T17:15:00.000+10:00

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

2006-09-05T19:15:00.000+10:00

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

2006-09-04T20:34:00.000+10:00

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

2006-09-03T12:17:00.000+10:00

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.

Bai Guia

2006-08-05T20:01:00.000+10:00

There will be an official hiatus in this blog. I'm going on vacation until 25/8 and don't expect to be near the net much.

Bai Guia is a sandbank in the middle of the Red River. Now that the water level is controlled by the Da River dam, I'm not sure how much of it is flooded during the wet season. It seems to me to have been getting larger over time, but that could be my imagination, so perhaps it isn't flooded over so much any more. Anyway, for as long as I can recall, people have been growing stuff on it during the dry season. They come down river from provinces further up, like Phu Tho. But that's on higher ground - a few more metres above the dry-season water line. Here, we're on the beach at the northwestern tip, not far from the Thang Long bridge.

Gathering chi gong

2006-08-04T23:38:00.000+10:00

It has a different name here, but it's the same concept of mind over matter. This kid was about to undergo a piercing of the skin on his back with a very large nail. He apparently felt no pain and there was no blood from the wound, indeed there was no wound at all after the procedure was over. Others, also children, had concrete blocks placed on their legs or stomachs that were smashed by karate chops. Another pulled a Landcruiser along by a rope held between his teeth. I found this performance both impressive and very disturbing. It is part of the 'traditional' cultural revival going on all over the country, but although this performance was being filmed by VTV, it isn't approved of by the government and I can see why. A crowd of spectators gathered to be entertained, but what's it for really? Just people, mostly children, doing freaky things for the sake of being freaky? The claim is to have some spiritual power, but what do they use it for? I suppose I'm too secular and materialist, but after watching a couple of these demonstrations I wanted to escape to somewhere more down-to-earth and less gruesome.

Making noodles 1

2006-08-03T21:05:00.000+10:00

This is hot work - standing over an oven in tropical heat. The mixture is spread over a cloth membrane stretched over a giant wok. One (upside-down) fan keeps the fire going, another cools the cook. It takes a couple of minutes to cook the mixture to into a chewy, stretchy consistency which is then rolled up and stretched over a rectangular open-weave bamboo frame and put out in the open air to dry. There were two women working at this - one cooking and one rolling up and stretching. They worked in perfect synchronisation: by the time the second woman had finished stretching and set up a new frame, the cook had completed the next batch. I've no idea how many hours a day they did that - 10 minutes was long enough to watch it.

Village archway

2006-08-02T20:23:00.000+10:00

Only a few of the many alleys leading off the main street in Cu Da had grand entryways like this. Perhaps they once led to a grand house. They're all badly in need of renovation. If anyone viewing this can read the characters, I'd love to know what they say.

Coming back from the fields

2006-08-01T19:56:00.000+10:00

As I mentioned before, most Vietnamese like to dress up for photos. This woman was trying to wave my camera away with her hat, but laughing in the process, so I don't feel too bad about posting her picture in work clothes on the internet! The other person with her back to the camera is one of my work colleagues. We were on a lunch-time ramble around the village and surrounding fields.

Lotus (bong sen)

2006-07-31T20:49:00.000+10:00

My server has been down all weekend, so here's something nice to make up for the hiatus.

The lotus is the national flower. It is on the tail of the Vietnam Airline planes. It is a major buddhist symbol. It is a source of food. And it is associated with women: Vietnamese women, like the lotus, are lovely things that grow in dirty water. Needless to say, that is a male viewpoint.

In the central planning period the Vietnamese began to manufacture tractors. Two of the larger models are known as Bong Sen (lotus) and Hoa Mai (apricot blossom). They are noisy, filthy things grown by beautiful Vietnamese people.

Thuan Hai ceramics

2006-07-28T20:45:00.000+10:00

Although situated in a town that specializes in the manufacture of ceramics, this shop sells mostly imported Chinese products which are much more popular with Vietnamese buyers than the 'handcrafted' look of the local stuff. Dong Trieu is located on the main road to Ha Long Bay, so it picks up a lot of trade from passing traffic and the couple who run this shop are rich by Vietnamese rural standards.

Skyline

2006-07-27T21:36:00.000+10:00

One of the more noticeable changes over the past decade is the increased use of colour. Galvanized iron roofing has become popular and the variety of colours available is amazing. People are wallowing in new choices of colours, spires, towers - so different from the old days. Even in the early 90s, when a lot of new houses were being built, we used to joke that there was only one architect. Nowadays, I think everybody's an architect!

Fruit vine (qua gac)

2006-07-26T11:11:00.000+10:00

Here's the fruit I mentioned yesterday that gives the red colouring to food. I can't find the name in the dictionary, but gach is given as the red-orange fat of a crab (see the crab soup yesterday). Maybe the fruit has the same name. Gach is also the word for bricks and tiles.

Update: commenter corrected me. It is gac (ga^'c).

Lunch for seven

2006-07-25T19:25:00.000+10:00

On the table - clockwise from the top:
bun: thin rice noodles
xoi: sticky rice with orange colouring from a fruit called something like gac
bun rieu: crab meat soup with rice noodles;
salad of lettuce leaves, a variety of green herbs and (I think) banana flower;
more xoi and bun rieu;
I don't remember the one with half a lime - some kind of animal innards with dried shredded something else on top;
On the tray - clockwise from the top again:
Pork innards and skin with veg;
gio: a kind of pork sausage meat;
The two bowls contain fish sauce and various condiments;
Grilled pork meat;
Boiled chicken with lemon grass.
Salt, pepper, chilli and lime in the centre.

Halida beer to wash it down.

It was all totally scrumptious.

Loading rice

2006-07-24T18:15:00.000+10:00

Each bag weighs 50 kg. In 20 minutes a man and a woman loaded 2 tonnes from the storeromm at the back of the shop into their truck. They just worked steadily, each carrying out 20 bags. No money changed hands, the wholesaler wrote in her book and told us that she sells on credit and has a hard time calling it in. But if she doesn't offer credit, the customers will go elsewhere. That load was worth about $750.

Under eave

2006-07-23T21:23:00.000+10:00

The house belongs to a farmer and is about 100 years old.

Two women

2006-07-22T16:42:00.000+10:00

How light are you? Lenin Park

2006-07-21T20:38:00.001+10:00

I posted an earlier photo of the former Lenin Park at dusk. Here's another, of one of the people who try to make a living from petty services all around the city. The older woman, in the conical hat, has set up her scales not far from one of the park entrance gates and, since she clearly doesn't have customers queuing up, she and her friend are engrossed in conversation. Note the loudspeaker higher up that blares muzak all day. Nonetheless, its something of an oasis of calm in a noisy, traffic-clogged city.

A bit of shade in the noonday heat

2006-07-20T17:42:00.000+10:00

This somewhat rickety looking hut is a place where the farmer can take a siesta after lunch if he's out working in the fields. It's up on stilts so the occupant won't be disturbed by passersby - since the only dry land around here is the public path, that seems to be a necessary adaptation. The baskets hanging underneath are fish traps. I wasn't sure whether anyone was in there, so I didn't look inside, but it's possible that it's also used to store some stuff - as long as, like the fish traps, it's stuff that is so commonplace around the village that nobody would want to steal it. The door was open, but then it didn't look as if it could be closed either.

Ceramics depot

2006-07-19T19:13:00.000+10:00

Down by the river's edge to the north of Hanoi is an open-air warehouse of ceramics that are traded up the river from places like Bat Trang and Kim Lan. By the look of this boat the river trade is not a path to great riches. From here they're carried all over the city by travelling hawkers - usually on a bicycle with big wire baskets on either side.

Black mud

2006-07-18T14:08:00.000+10:00

I took this in a village called Kim Lan, a ceramics producing centre not far from the more famous Bat Trang, in Hung Yen province east of Hanoi. The kilns here burn coal and the whole village was covered in coal dust that turned to mud after rain. Yes, we visited on a cold, wet day in late 2001. It's a reminder that coal produces other pollutants besides carbon dioxide and that it costs a lot of money to clean up the mess and to make places more pleasant to live in for those who need to use the fuel for energy. Actually Vietnamese coal is anthracite, which burns relatively cleanly compared to softer, bituminous coals, so you don't see the smoke-haze that characterizes other coal-burning industries. It doesn't have the sulphur content either. But it's still filthy stuff!

Winter street scene

2006-07-17T19:50:00.000+10:00

Near the northern end of the Hoan Kiem lake on a chilly day. The red sign says that it's forbidden to park any kind of business vehicle on that part of the street - aimed at farmers who come in and sell stuff from their bicycles. However, it's apparently quite OK to just leave your car in the middle of the road! It doesn't belong to the two women buying from the shoulder-pole woman. Its owner was nowhere in sight during the 40 minutes I was waiting there getting a new pair of specs.

Chao, pho

2006-07-16T13:27:00.000+10:00

Apologies for the lack of focus. I took this outside our lunch place in Cu Da - the only eatery in two villages. The menu consisted of two dishes: chao (rice porridge) or noodle soup with chicken or beef. The noodles were not actually pho, but bun which are also made from rice, but not wide and flat like the pho. On our last day, as a special treat, our cook actually made the soup with the local product, mien. Whichever noodles we had, however, the soup was very good, as was the chao - filling and tasty. I'm looking forward to going back.

Barber shop

2006-07-15T15:05:00.000+10:00

Barbers usually set up in the street. They often hang a mirror on the wall so the customer can keep a check on progress. There used to be a block of Quang Trung St in the city that was lined with barber shops, but there are few there now. Maybe because the wall was (is?) also frequently used as a public urinal. Or maybe the barbers have moved up in the world and found a real shop to work from.

The slogan on this wall tells people to vote in the national election.

Bastille Day at the Opera

2006-07-14T21:06:00.000+10:00

Vietnam is a good place to be reminded that the meaning of national days can change. Neither the 4th of July, nor the 14th were originally days when patriotism equated with approval of empire. The 4th of July even had a specifically anti-imperial meaning and the 14th was all about liberation from oppression. Nevertheless Bastille Day in 1911 (which I think is the year that the Opera House was finished) was no doubt celebrated by the French in full unconsciousness of how far they were then removed from their original ideals of 'liberty, equality, fraternity'.

My first visit was for a concert in late 1991. There was a pleasant piano piece composed and played by a visiting Thai musician (who also conducted the orchestra), then the orchestra's regular conductor took the stage to conduct the most incredibly botched piece of Tchaikovsky I can ever recall hearing. My Vietnamese companions were very embarrassed and explained that the orchestra had no money and the players were too busy earning a living to be able to practice. I went back a couple of years later, with some trepidation, to see a concert by Dang Thai Son - an absolutely brilliant Vietnamese-born American winner of the Chopin Prize. On that occasion the conductor was English, the pianist was a genius and the orchestra played brilliantly. So money was not the only reason for their lack of motivation back in 1991. The Opera House itself, was gorgeous, if somewhat dilapidated, the seats were so close together that your knees tended to get bruised and the rising damp was everywhere in the foyers. By 1997 the place had been restored to its full glory with French money (they were unable to solve the damp problem however, nor did they move the seats). The nicest touch is that in the second floor salon behind the colonnade, they have left the original mirrors, complete with bullet holes from a famous battle of 1946.

I should mention that nowadays the Opera House seems to be the scene of battles in the Culture War. This is a war fought between the donors - the British Council, the Alliance Francaise, the Goethe Institute, etc. Each tries to outdo the others in bringing their cultural showpieces to Vietnam for the benefit of the expat community and the tiny Vietnamese elite who appreciate this sort of stuff.

To the right of the photo you can see a little bit of the Hilton Opera Hanoi (a hotel, not a prison), the architect of which made an attempt to copy the style of the Opera House in order not to ruin the environment of Hanoi's most famous building. If you look at the two buildings together, however, I can't really say it was a successful attempt. In fact the effect is quite jarring. It might have been better to put up the usual plastic box hotel - or leave the park that was there before!

Bridge (Cau Buou)

2006-07-13T13:56:00.000+10:00

This bridge is a major crossing from the Cau Buou area on the Hanoi side of the river into Ha Tay province and the only bridge for miles. For a more a more stable bridge you need to detour via the road bridge in Ha Dong city. They were building a new concrete one not far away, but I'll kind of miss the excitement of this one. In the photo you see A, more than slightly terrified by her first crossing, though Mr T, her driver, is surely experienced at this sort of thing. I have even ridden across more challenging bridges myself, though I admit the steep first section of this one and it's narrowness, together with the fact that it moves around quite a lot on its pontoons makes it interesting to ride across. There's a 2000 dong toll (about USD 0.12)for motorbikes - I hope they use it for maintenance!

Car wash

2006-07-12T09:31:00.000+10:00

The view from my friends' balcony. On the right is one of the ubiquitous 'home improvement' projects - usually they involve demolition of the old house and construction of something from 4-6 stories on the same site, preferably with as much ostentation as is possible. On the left (rua xe) the place where you go to get your motorbike washed. They have a few tables and chairs so you can get a cuppa while you wait. Between them (in front of the rua xe sign) a watch repair stall.

Cafe Pho

2006-07-11T13:22:00.000+10:00

Just three years ago Cafe Pho (literally Street Cafe) in Ly Thuong Kiet was the sort of place that basically catered to foreign customers. Now during the lunch hour it is packed with the new Vietnamese middle class. The lunch is buffet-style and not fantastic.

Prayers

2006-07-10T18:55:00.000+10:00

Mr L was snap happy at the pagoda during the festival day. My digital camera was a new toy for him and I was happy to let a local take the photos since I wasn't sure what was appropriate behaviour. He did quite a good job too. These women seemed very devoted, joining in the chanting every now and then. Others, who sat further towards the periphery spent more time talking to each other.

Tea stall outside the Dinh, Cu Da

2006-07-09T14:15:00.000+10:00

The archway through which I took this photo is the old gateway to the village, at which horseriders were supposed to get down and start walking. Nowadays the village extends beyond this gate right up to the border with the next village. The woven bamboo boards covered with the bright orange stuff are part of the mien manufacturing process - out to dry before being cut into very thin noodles. They are all up and down every street in the village: these have been set up against the front fence of the village dinh .

Toad

2006-07-07T20:47:00.000+10:00

During lunch breaks last October we ate every day at the only "restaurant" in two villages. The choices on the menu were chao (rice porridge) or pho (soup with rice noodles). Both very good quality. The place had a balcony overlooking the river, which was fine until the river went black and stinky. Most of the customers came in with a saucepan for takeaway and we rarely had anyone else sit down at the only table with us. This little beastie was hopping about the floor of our eatery one day. I chased him with my camera and had him (or her) cornered for this shot.

Doing laundry

2006-07-06T16:39:00.000+10:00

One of the housekeepers (the Vietnamese word is o sin, after Oshin the Japanese soap about a housemaid from over a decade ago). from the guesthouse next door doing the laundry in the alleyway below. At my guesthouse they have a washing machine. I've stayed in that one though, when my regular place is full: the woman who runs it really objects to having to engage in merely money-making activities. As a consequence, it's a ramshackle place, though the price is no different from the one I stay in. My landlady, who runs a great operation, is nevertheless looked down upon by her less successful neighbour who just happens to come from an elite family!

Palanquin from the Khuc Thuy dinh

2006-07-05T17:08:00.000+10:00

I had to crawl under the dust cover to take a look at this in the dinh at Khuc Thuy. It is only pulled out once every two years for the Hoi Lanh (village festival), for which the villagers all dress up in old-fashioned costume and participate in a parade down the main road. I have no idea what or whom is or was carried in this big sedan chair - maybe they leave it empty these days because it looks heavy enough on its own. Again, however, the fact that they have a piece of equipment as fine as this testifies to the former prosperity of the village. I've visited quite a few dinh over the years, but I don't recall anything like this one. Mostly they seem much more crudely decorated, not to mention dusty and decrepit.

Something for the Fourth of July

2006-07-04T15:16:00.000+10:00

This is not exactly a great photo, but it has an interesting story. It shows the new roof of Hoa Lo prison, popularly known in the west as the "Hanoi Hilton" (taken from an upper floor of the nearby Melia Hotel where I was at a conference). Originally constructed by the French - hence the name Maison centrale over the main entrance - it once held many Vietnamese revolutionaries and is basically set up today to tell that story. But for a few years it also held American POWs. I visited about 10 years ago - I only remember the approximate time because one of the prison's former inmates, Douglas 'Pete' Peterson, was then back in Hanoi as the first US ambassador - a person hugely appreciated by the Vietnamese for his ability to forgive and get on with life.

Anyway, it is a pretty ugly place. The ground floor is somewhat like a dungeon - huge, gloomy long rooms with sleeping benches on either side to which Vietnamese prisoners were kept in leg-irons; tiny, dark and dank solitary confinement closets; and a guillotine - a barbaric instrument if ever there was one. The exercise yard, of which there's only about a quarter left since two thirds of the total area was demolished to make way for the Hanoi Towers - Hanoi's first and possibly ugliest set of 'skyscrapers' - actually had a couple of trees and must've been a huge respite for those who were allowed to use it. Apparently 100 Vietnamese prisoners - led by Do Muoi, who was Party Secretary in the late-1980s and early-'90s - escaped through the sewers in 1945. That must have been when the Japanese rounded up all the Vichy French just prior to the end of World War II.

The room we were shown as having been accommodation for the Americans was, by contrast, comparatively luxurious. I note, however, an American website which says that 47 POWs were living in one room at Christmas 1971, so they certainly could not have been in that room. I see from another site that the room was in what the Americans called the 'New Guys' Village': there is a photo of the room here. Most of them were in fact held in the now-demolished section they called 'Camp Unity' shown here, in a photo that appears to post-date the American war. The section in the foreground where the Hanoi Towers now stand.

At the time of my visit I had no idea so many Americans had been shot down over North Vietnam - there were more in other rooms in the prison as well as scattered in other places, including the Yen Phu power station and MoD area of the old Citadel, presumably so that these places wouldn't be bombed. I visited a fan factory a few doors down Ly Thuong Kiet from the prison back in 1992. The manager explained that, unlike most other factories, his had never been evacuated from the city during the war because they were confident that no American bombs would come anywhere near to Hoa Lo. I have some better photos, from my pre-digital era that I need to get scanned.

Tea stall

2006-07-03T11:00:00.000+10:00

These are all over the city. A lot of life takes place on the streets due to overcrowding, but it makes for a vibrant social life. An endless cup of tea is very cheap and passersby as well as regulars can stop for a few minutes refreshment and a chat. This woman used to pack up at night, but then another lot of stalls open up and you can see little groups of men sitting around, nearly always with a woman serving, paraffin lamps burning, at all hours.

Modernized tradition

2006-07-02T11:11:00.000+10:00

We were invited to participate in a festival at the pagoda. I forget exactly the occasion, but possibly it was the 'anniversary' of the establishment of the first pagoda in the village by its first monk about 1000 years ago. The fact that it's right after the harvest and everyone has some cash to contribute might have more to do with it than any actual anniversary. Anyway, they hired a monk to come and perform with microphone and strategically placed speakers so that he could be heard from every corner. He was definitely chanting in Vietnamese, but reading from a text written in ideograms - possibly Han Nom, which is the indigenous version of Chinese characters. This marks him out as a scholar since very few people these days can read these characters. The other two were there simply to give a timely clash of cymbals or bang on the drum. The men and women were praying separately in two parts of the pagoda. The women in the front section where they had their own non-chanting chief nun and the men in the back part where this guy was. The women's section was full, the men's almost empty. In fact the men were all to be found in the out-building where the food and drink (beer) was being served.

Village house and yard

2006-07-01T11:55:00.000+10:00

The people who own this house are poor and not very successful farmers. They have enough land to make a better go of it, but somehow they don't. As a result they both have to spend time doing wage work for others. She does agricultural work, I'm not sure what he does, but it's in the provincial town and, she told us, he's training to be a hairdresser. I guess farming and hairdressing don't really go together! They have one small kid. The other possible reason for their poverty is that they recently inherited land in the village from his family. Most of the rest of the family lives in Thanh Hoa province, to which they had fled during the French bombing in 1946. The result is that this couple don't really know a whole lot of people in the village and it's possible that they learned how to farm in a place where conditions are quite different. Not really being plugged into the local networks means that they could be having difficulty adapting.

Everyone has a brick-paved yard so that the paddy can be spread out to dry after the harvest. Each night it is raked up, using the instrument in the foreground, and put into storage indoors overnight so that it doesn't get damp again. And, by the way, that is a pet dog, not an edible one!

Buffalo

2006-06-30T14:07:00.000+10:00

During our lunch breaks, while our Vietnamese colleagues were absorbed in Korean soap opera (passion, tragedy, a lot of driving around in posh cars), we used to go for a walk around the village or the fields. On one such walk we encountered this buffalo having a good wallow in the ditch and watching us with relaxed curiosity. There were some cows around too, but they ignored us. Maybe they'd have moved if we'd actually bumped into them...

Black water

2006-06-29T12:53:00.000+10:00

The other day I mentioned the improved Hanoi drainage - even in a Big Rain, the streets are fairly clear of floods nowadays. Well this is where it comes out. The river branch at the top of the photo contains run-off from the city. The left branch comes from upstream of the city and is the red colour it's supposed to be. Note the floating vegetable gardens in it. Downstream of this junction, the water is entirely black, although it wasn't a few days before the photo was taken. The water level has been deliberately lowered by closing a gate further upstream. This is done so that people can pump excess water out of their fields in order to prepare for the next crop. But the result is that the only water flowing out of the city is water emanating from the city. So you realize that this black stuff is in fact always there, it's just hidden when the water level is high! It smells, is covered in oil slick and has gas bubbles plopping up from the depths. There is a kind of fish that can live in this, amazingly enough. It's called ca ro. We were given some for dinner a few days later - my colleague was unable to eat it and I just prayed that it had been caught further upstream! We did see some people fishing, also chickens pecking about in the mud by the "water's" edge and, most horrifyingly, we were told that some people depend on the river for their own water supply.

Village alley

2006-06-28T10:31:00.000+10:00

These alleys run more or less parallel to each other from the main street back towards the rice fields. Note the remnant of decoration on the arch - suggesting that it once looked much finer. Also the ramp cut into the steps in order to bring the motorbike indoors has left a gaping hole under the door.

View from the roof

2006-06-27T13:12:00.000+10:00

Mr L of Khuc Thuy has extended his house upwards. It's the only way to go when residential land is so scarce. This is the view from the roof terrace on top of the third floor. North Vietnamese villages are generally surrounded by a bamboo hedge - a thicket that would have been impossible to penetrate in days when local defence was needed. These days they're a bit patchy, so the roof offers a view of recently harvested paddy fields and the lines of eucalypts in the distance planted for timber along all the roads and main irrigation ditches. Self-sufficiency is the name of the game - everyone has fruit trees, pigs and chickens, a haystack for cooking fuel and a well. Whatever can be fitted into your plot of land!

Sifting milled rice

2006-06-26T20:17:00.000+10:00

A village trader sifting her milled rice before bagging. Anything that still has the husk attached or is otherwise too large to get through the open-weave basket gets set aside. This particular woman trades brown rice of a glutinous variety that is used for the manufacture of rice alcohol (aka firewater!).

Farm couple, Hai Duong

2006-06-25T11:39:00.000+10:00

Here are the owners of the pigs in the previous photo, standing in front of that year's crop of cooking fuel. I have noticed that Vietnamese farmers are happy to greet visitors in their work clothes, but invariably put their good clothes on over the top for the photo. We were visiting because Ms X is part of a basket weaving collective that sells basketry to an export company in Hanoi. We had visited their place of work and Ms X invited us to her home. Basket weaving isn't a highly remunerative occupation, but it helps to keep them going between rice crops. Looking after the livestock is also women's work. Men, on the other hand, have a lot more leisure time.

This little piggy...

2006-06-24T19:10:00.000+10:00

These two were very friendly. I thought they deserved to have their photo taken, though I admit I stood a bit far back - they had such wet gooey snouts and their house had an odour that was a bit hard to take. They lived in a village in Hai Duong province, but it was 4 years ago so I guess they've gone to the butcher by now.

Tail end of the storm

2006-06-23T18:26:00.000+10:00

Typhoon Damrey passed over in late September 2005 - somewhere between Katrina and Rita if I remember correctly. It was not only late in the season, but the worst typhoon in nearly a decade. Crops ready for harvest were destroyed. Unlike New Orleans, the Vietnamese were well prepared and troops were out sandbagging and evacuating people well before the storm hit. By the time it reached Hanoi, which is about 120 km inland, it was just a rain depression. We had heavy rain for about a week. In past years when it has rained like that, the city drainage system couldn't cope and floods were everywhere, but in the last 5-6 years the drainage system has improved so much that streets in the centre of the city that used to go a foot under water were clear all week.

French lady

2006-06-22T21:16:00.000+10:00

I have no idea where she came from, but she is obviously not Vietnamese. There are similar figures draped over a couple of colonial-era buildings - most notably the People's Committee in Saigon. I found her incongruously parked outside the Hall of Mirrors in the former Lenin Park in Hanoi.

Smart part of town in the rain

2006-06-21T20:05:00.001+10:00

When I took this I'd just finished an expensive and not very good lunch at the Met Pub, which caters to foreigners in Ngo Quyen behind the Metropole hotel. Across the road is the Au Lac cafe which is better, but was too wet that day as it is an outdoor place, and the Press Club - also expensive, but with very good wine. This is the old French quarter of tree-lined boulevards where the streets, since Independence, virtually all bear the names of Vietnamese heros who defeated the Chinese. Ngo Quyen was the one who ended the 1000-year Chinese occupation in the 10th century. Looking at this photo, I'm reminded that the very first privately registered Mercedes I saw in Hanoi was less than a decade ago.

Dong Trieu ceramics

2006-06-20T20:54:00.000+10:00

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.

Ho Guom

2006-06-19T21:12:00.000+10:00

Also known as Hoan Kiem Lake, the Lake of the Returned Sword. The legend is similar to that of King Arthur: the Emperor Le Thai To received a sword from the turtle that lives in the lake. He used it to defeat the invading Chinese and then returned it to the turtle. Sightings of the turtle(s) are rare and make the front page of the newspapers, though many people believe they are mythical too. The water in the lake is very polluted, since it's in the centre of Hanoi, so some people think there must be a secret entrance that gives the turtles access to a cleaner environment somewhere. The species is known to exist elsewhere in northern Vietnam, but nowhere else close to Hanoi. They grow to a large size (I recall reading that an American tourist said she thought the flipper that appeared above the water surface was a shark's fin!). There is supposed to be a couple of very old ones in the lake, but nobody has ever seen any baby turtles. Certainly there's nowhere on the lake shore where a turtle could lay an egg. So unless they've got that mythical escape passage, I guess they will eventually become part of the legend anyway.

The pagoda on the island connected by the pretty red bridge is, from memory, called Ngoc Son (pearl mountain?) and is not related to the turtle story.

Village graveyard

2006-06-18T15:43:00.000+10:00

Same village as previous post. More mien hanging out to dry in the distance.

Noodle works

2006-06-17T17:06:00.000+10:00

The village of Cu Da in Ha Tay province specializes in the manufacture of a type of noodle called mien - a translucent vermicelli. I think it is made from tapioca which comes from up in the mountains. It isn't grown around here anyway. While wandering around the village we walked into a couple of these places - the people were invariably friendly and quite happy to let us have a squiz. There is some kind of ingredient added to colour the noodles - which come in white, pale gold and a deeper gold colour according the the amount of this stuff added. I've never seen the gold ones on the table though. Half the households in Cu Da are in this business and the noodles are hanging out to dry all over the place. They make the village look very cheerful, but the smell is pretty horrid!

Hang Non, Hanoi

2006-06-16T23:42:00.000+10:00

Pho Hang Non (Non Street) is in the old quarter, the so-called '36 streets' which go back to an age when artisans serving the court clustered in the area near the citadel. Each street is named after one of the crafts - in this case the Non is the conical hat worn these days only by women. Other streets are named Chicken, Jute, Silver, Tin, Paper votary, Cloth, Bamboo, Leather and so forth. Often the streets remain highly specialized, but usually not in their original trades. Cloth Street (Hang Vai), for example, is noted for its bamboo ladders and Tin Street (Hang Thiec) still produces metalwork, but mostly in galvanised iron. Hang Gai (jute) was, in the 1990s, known by foreigners as Silk Street since it was a veritable supermarket shelf of silk cloth and clothing - now it has a lot of other souvenir and art shops as well. Hang Bong (cotton) was the place to go for pirate CDs and it's still fairly musically oriented. Hang Dao (peach) was called Silk Street by the French colonials and in the '90s became a huge clothing store. Another street is full of spectacles and another has clocks and watches. Others, like Hang Non are mixed. The specialization has become a lot less noticeable since the 1990s.

Floating village, Red River

2006-06-15T20:34:00.000+10:00

Part of a small cluster of houseboats and others moored in the northern outskirts of Hanoi. The families who live there (about 10 households) have the right to fish between the Thang Long and Chuong Duong bridges. It's not a very profitable occupation as the river is severely over-fished. They do a sideline in taking day-trippers out to Bai Giua, the long flat island in the middle of the river (in the background of the photo), in their small boats and bringing them back for a meal on the houseboat afterwards. Some friends and I went out on what turned out to be a hunting trip for the guys. They killed a heron which makes quite a good barbecue when cut into cubes and grilled at high temperature. I loathe hunting (and was glad to see them miss several), but the trip was otherwise lovely. The island has vast white sandy beaches at the western tip. The meal was tasty too - grilled fish, sour fish soup.

Dinh at Khuc Thuy

2006-06-14T11:39:00.000+10:00

The village dinh (communal house) at Khuc Thuy is a very fine one, reflecting the village's former prosperity. These days it could do with some restoration, though I hope it wouldn't be done in the garish colours that decorate the pagoda down the road! Anyway the dinh is where the village elders used to meet to decide the affairs of the village and it remains the centre of 'traditional', but non-religious business, the biennial village festival being the main example. I don't know why they only hold it every second year (money?), but it celebrates the founding of the village about a thousand years ago. Until late in the colonial era Khuc Thuy was a prosperous silk trading village, but most of the traders left for Hanoi and the local economy declined. Rice cultivation is now the main occupation. There are some fabulous old buildings - chiefly domestic architecture - from the late 19th and early 20th centuries when the village was rich. This front gate of the dinh probably dates from that era too.

Ladies' dance troupe

2006-06-13T14:25:00.000+10:00

In Hanoi you keep bumping into TV crews. Vietnamese TV is very local and, by global standards, anodyne. These women were no doubt performing for some cultural program with an emphasis on the importance of including older people in the loop. I'm not sure whether they're dancing, or doing some kind of exercises with fans - either way, this kind of synchronized callisthenics is very much promoted in the official culture. One of the nice things about it, is the way that such programs are not reserved for professional performances - the masses are participants as much as merely consumers of entertainment.

The backdrop is the Botanical Garden, a rather lovely patch of green. It used to have a small zoo. The cages are still there, but the animals were moved during the war in case the Americans bombed Ho Chi Minh's nearby house and the tiger escaped. There is also a very small hill or mound, on which, nearly a thousand years ago, the emperor stood and, surveying the surrounding plain, declared the site for his capital of Thang Long. Nowadays you can't survey anything from the top of that hill except the trees and nearby houses.

Village yard, Red River delta

2006-06-12T10:24:00.001+10:00

I took this photo while sitting in the cramped living quarters of a village rice trader and her husband who is a construction worker. L began trading in 2004; previously she was a poor farmer. The couple's one-room accommodation has been divided off from his parents' house - it is their bedroom, living room and warehouse and is about as big as my kitchen in Sydney. The outbuilding is the kitchen and bathroom block. That's my moto parked in the corner, but they do have one too, parked behind the piece of sacking that keeps the sun out. For transporting rice she uses the xe tho, the modified bicycle with a platform built on one side to carry a few bags and an arrangement of poles for steering and maintaining balance as you walk alongside. They use this to collect paddy from the villagers. For transport to her main customer - a wholesaler a few villages away - she hires a tractor-trailer with a capacity of just over a tonne. It is small-scale stuff, but much better than being a farmer. Maybe in a few years they'll be able to build their own house.

Evening constitutional in Lenin Park

2006-06-11T12:06:00.000+10:00

This photo was taken in mid-winter (January 2003) - hence the misty atmosphere, part-pollution, part-humidity. The park has since been renamed something memorable like "Hanoi Public Park", while the little square in front of the old citadel where the statue of Lenin still stands is now called "Lenin Park". For me, however, the name Lenin Park is still linked to the much larger green space in the southern part of the city centre. In the early 1990s, when I first went there, the Park was also home to the remains of a B52 bomber, but that has also been removed - possibly to preserve it from gradual demolition by souvenir hunters. (The B52 museum in Can Doi street is worth a visit - it also has a MIG fighter and various other interesting means of destruction). Otherwise, the Park has some fun rides for kids, a Chinese restaurant with a very good reputation (whenever I've tried to go there it has been closed!), open spaces for badminton, football and callisthenics, and a lake with a two kilometre diameter that is very popular with joggers and walkers. In fine weather the lake is also crowded with little boats, especially foot-powered paddle-wheelers. The park also has musak, broadcast from numerous loudspeakers hung around the trees. At night, when it is closed, it is also a major hangout for the city's working women.

Cooperative housing, Hanoi

2006-06-10T13:18:00.000+10:00

This was the view from my balcony. It is fairly typical of the old cooperative housing blocks. Even before they were privatised, people built cages outside their windows to give a little extra space. Now these cages have often turned into half a room. Inside they can be quite pleasant, if somewhat cramped - at least nowadays there's usually only one family. But the cooperatively owned parts of the buildings are usually dank and run down. The stairwells, for example, rarely even have a light bulb. When I asked a colleague of mine who lives in one of these buildings why they don't even replace the light bulbs, she replied that the bulbs would just be stolen for people's own apartments. Nobody is willing to pay for a coat of paint, etc. However, I have seen people on the roofs keeping the gutters clear of debris. Apparently they do want to keep the water out!

I think this tells something about the individualism that has run rampant in the wake of communism. Cooperative organisations have lost the trust of the population to a massive extent and people won't pay to support them. I guess trust in such organisations will come back in time, when people start to become affluent enough that stealing a light bulb doesn't seem worth the effort, or when the buildings start falling down around their ears... But by that time they will come about by demand, not imposed from the top.