the page design. This is the first in a set of pages on Quốc Lộ 32 in northern Vietnam. Quốc Lộ indicates a national highway few of which are fast roads, but as they twine their way through the countryside the visitor is taken to its heart. Highway 32 is my favourite of the diverse possibilities, lifting the traveller from Hà Nội and the plains of the Red River, through winding valleys to the uplands, west of Sa Pa and mount Phăng Xi Păng...
The sun setting on buffalo being escorted home
...which is mainland south-east Asia’s highest peak. Rather than following the path of the road these pages select aspects of the route. Below the concentration is on what is natural to the area rather than the human impact - not always so easily separated, as the people and the hill terraces are to be seen everywhere in this part of the Vietnamese countryside. Welcome to this beautiful road.
This view and the one to the right show that there are still tree covered hills looking much as they might have looked in the past, but such dense woodlands are now rare outside the National Parks. The photo below is more typical
Vietnam's karst country is predominantly in the far
north east
and beyond, into China, however, outcrops such as these are to be seen more widely
Karsts appearing as the morning mist clears. And from the largest objects in the valley to the small -
This is a harmless Chinese Green snake in rather undignified pose
This road is making its way up the valley from the right, passing below the photographer and then "hair-pinning" up to the left to take its traffic over a pass
Long zig-zags of roads are very common in the far north of the country, as are unprotected
sheer drops
- that dot is a bus - some of its occupants may be worried
To another sort of 'impact', above the effects
of damming in the last 10 years...
A more traditional human impact - the shaping of the fields and woods
...Compare below where the vegetation reaches towards the water's edge and the water level is at a normal seasonal low, not a new level
A young tributary of the River Đà winding through the valley near the mid-point of Highway 32. Here fields and terraces are constant features
Visitors like myself may tour on wheels, but farmers must use tracks such as these to reach their fields
Butterflies are often as big as bats, but too fast moving to photograph - a humbler relative
Rivers meander in the...
...wide flat valleys
Another co-operative butterfly
A lone karst - forgotten and left out by its friends in the north
Terracing by a village is here more evident
Houses, fields, paths and woods showing delightfully integrated habitation
This splendid, sadly unidentifiable, bug was maybe two inches long
A rather cobbled together, as it was not intended, panorama. This wide view takes us towards the subsequent pages in this series. Here we move from countryside showing little evidence of human habitation, to those familiar terraced landscapes - so loved by photographers - not least this one!
This view with its winding paths, steep terraces and small houses and huts encapsulates well the charm of the Vietnamese landscape
Paddy fields on the valley floor, and overhanging karsts, hem in this village
The snake higher up the page may well be harmless, but this mother should not be approached carelessly
A similar bend in the river to that shown above but here every inch has been terraced
And now the first people - a woman walks out between the fields
Passing on from natural features...
Plentiful supplies of water are vital to Vietnam's food systems, and its shortage is the main problem posed for those
who live
in the mountains. The river valleys provide an ease of life seen here in the setting sun among the
gently creaking of the bamboos
Trailers...
The next Picture Posting
page indulges the photographer's taste for terraces - and the houses that sit on them.
The next page
of the Mosaic Section is headed 'Doing it Alone'.
Or go to the contents Go to the contents of the Mosaic Section. of the Mosaic Section.
To a very small valley in a very English landscape
...guide to this site