As everywhere in Vietnam the planting out of paddy seedlings is done with immaculate precision. Any ground is always viewed as valuable, so waste is kept to a minimum, witness this path between the fields - not for tottery feet
Looking up from that last field at the house beside it
This is the first of the Collection of photographs from Lào Cai and Lai Châu Provinces on the northern border of Vietnam, to the west of
Hà Giang Province.
Lào Cai includes the popular tourist hill town of
Sa Pa,
and famous market at
Bắc Hà,
and is therefore a province much visited by foreigners. This collection starts in the south-east of Lào Cai, and moves north-west to Sa Pa, before introducing Lai Châu. While Lào Cai has the mountains that give Sa Pa its pleasant cool 5,000 foot climate, it also has hot fertile valleys and, accordingly, extensive paddy fields, some of which, with their workers, are the subject of the photographs on this page of pictures from the south-east
of the province.
Houses stand along the junction of hillside and field, and behind them, forested hills rise into the mist
Many houses, such as this reflected stilt house, show the presence of the large ethnic Thai community that Vietnam supports
The little tufts, on the distant field, are clumps of paddy seedlings brought here from the mass in which they are sown and germinate. These clumps have been...
...scattered across the field ready for the
planters
to take a clump, and extract a seedling from the bundle, and place it in the matrix, seen in the already planted fields
Any distraction from the back breaking work is welcome, so even a distant
photographer can give amusement
In the countryside there are still many people dependent on bicycles to reach their fields. Normally the light winds in Vietnam do not blow bikes over and they stand on the arm provided
for the back wheel, like this one above
That line of planters shown in their village context
These photos follow one woman: above, resting
Here shovelling what looks like very heavy mud
And here making her way back from the fields on one the narrow footpaths
seen at the top of this page
Drawing back, these are the fields and their surroundings
The same woman in the wider context
Then on the last of the narrow paths
And finally onto wider paths as she nears the village
Bamboos as riverside decoration
Bamboos make the path to the right. The planks are given strength by being tied to the (potentially floating) bamboo trunks. So keeping pedestrians just out of the stream; although not out of the spray from the Jeep attempting to wash itself
Banana leaves frame a water wheel.
Click here to go to examples
of other water wheels
While (for some unknown reason) the earth around these electricity poles was required, the poles could not be moved, result: giant ant hills
A very neatly kept Thai style meeting house
Hay is
commonly stacked
around poles, giving this enterprising chicken a commanding view
No need to pay to have the grass cut when a buffalo can turn the grass into money. It is rare for a patch of ground to go unused in Vietnam
One way of getting a seat while having to tend a grazing buffalo, with the bonus of a lift home at the end of the day. Another example can be
seen
in the photos from Hà Giang Province
Trailers...
The next Picture Posting
page is to take you to the central area of
Lào Cai.
The next page
of the Ruminations Section is to be headed 'Siblings'.
Or go to the contents of the Ruminations Section.
The last page had photos from the village of Glencaple, in southern Scotland
Go to another, very different, group of workers near paddy fields - health workers in northern India
To a page on the preparation of the fields ready for planting the paddy
...guide to this site