The 'charm' (Vietnam tourist board's apt word) of Route 32: water, beautiful (slightly decaying) country houses with pan-tiled roofs, everywhere banana trees, together with less charming, but ubiquitous features of Vietnam life: maybe you can see the parked motorcycle, satellite dish, and power cables which creep into every photo
Ducks scuttling to still reflections
This sequence of pages, about Route 32 in northern Vietnam, is leaving behind fields and paddy, and here offering a miscellany of snapshots from along Quốc Lộ 32, showing some of the sights to be seen: the people, roads and the houses along the way, with an aside on methods of harnessing water power - which are seen everywhere in Vietnam. These photos are not all exactly from the Highway itself - some are from roads leading into the splendid Quốc Lộ 32, and you may recognise a couple of the photos which have appeared already on other pages.
The same scene with distant ducks, showing apparently pointless fencing
Here a much more ambitious construction, a new house with traditional carved balustrading
and roof supports
A view with plainer houses maybe, but making up for it with a fancy landscape
The school at Mù Cang Chải, the rich ochre enhanced by sunset. Elsewhere extensively used, as in
Hà Nội
A village nestles at the base of hills. Others - see above and below - rise to 2,500 metres (8,200 feet)
This village looks out across the plain. Critical to Vietnam's crops is the high rainfall. This takes considerable management to deliver the right amount of water to these paddy fields. But water management does not end there, as shown in the pictures below...
A stream is diverted into a bamboo channel, which feeds a spout...
...(top right of photo) from where it drops into a 'mortar' at one end of a...
...pivoted 'pestle'. As it fills the pestle rises, until the angle is such that...
... the water falls out, the pestle then falls on the grain in the mortar
With careful design of the mortar, this mechanism replaces much labour
From the other side; as the water empties from the reservoir, the weight shifts to the pestle end, which then falls
The delight of these houses is their pan-tiled roofs. Sadly their numbers are dwindling as owners can save money by using asbestos; an example can be seen to the rear of the house above
However, there are still many such large comfortable dwellings along Route 32. They come in two main forms: like the one in this picture with a surrounding shaded veranda, or as the stilted Thai houses seen in the photo below and at the top of this page
Another aspect of roads in Vietnam. The predominantly damp weather keeps the...
And in contrast a verdant path gently winds its way between wet paddy fields to a village
...clay soils wet and the dust down, but if there is a dry spell this is the result
A motorbike takes a side road towards a village
under the hills
And in a town a motorbike takes the angle necessary to balance its load of coconuts
A motorised haberdasher approaches...
...the full glory of his wares revealed once he is past
An unmotorised older form of transport
As with these two
Another kind of load. Five up, and if you think that is excessive...
...have a careful look at this photo. Its not so easy to count but the feet of the boy, standing at the front, are hidden...
...Yes, six of them, off on a fishing trip. Nowhere to put the catch? Anyway it looks as though fun is being had without any reward
Trailers...
The next Picture Posting page
offers photographs from markets along Route 32.
The next page
of the Mosaic Section is headed 'Dreams and Memory'.
Or go to the contents Go to the contents of the Mosaic Section. of the Mosaic Section.
The last page had photos of paddy fields
...guide to this site