Staring at the Niesen: Vietnam

At the end of December 2013 our family went to Vietnam.

We arrived in the capital, Hanoi, in the north of the country.

After dinner in a restaurant by the train station, we boarded a sleeper to Sa Pa.

Sa Pa lies in the mountainous area between Lai Chau and Lao Cai on the border with China, reached by travelling 300 km up the Red River north-west of Hanoi.

We woke up at our destination in the morning mists.

The surrounding hills are home to a number of ethnic groups. The largest are the Hmong and the Yao, numbering around 4 million each - most living over the border in China, but thier ranges extending into Vietnam (and for the Hmong also Laos). Nearly 2 million Tay people and around 70,000 Giay people live in north Vietnam. These 'hill' peoples are further divided into smaller groups with their own languages - nothing creating diversity better than the isolating effect of mountains and valleys. They live by growing crops, mainly rice, on sloping terraces.

No rice is grown in the cold mountain winters, and time is rather spent maintaining the terraces...

...cutting fire wood...

...or watching cock fights.

The clothes of the people here are usually blue, and often so dark as to appear black. The dye used for this is Indigo (Indigofera tinctoria), a plant of the pea family.

The Yao women (Dao in Vietnamese) wear colourful embroidery over their indigo, and sport very dashing bright red hats and headscarves.

We stayed in the wooden house of this Dao couple.

We also dressed in indigo, to blend in.

Our hosts also kept pigs, which were often seen running around the rice paddies.

Dinner was cooked over an open fire in the middle of the room - and hanging over our heads, porc being preserved in the rising smoke. Heaven.

We then crossed to the opposite side of north Vietnam - to Ha Long Bay, about 150 km east of Hanoi. A UNESCO world heritage site, and big tourist attraction, it contains around 2,000 mostly limestone islets.

We spent a couple of days touring on a boat. In the evening all these boats congregated at a sheltered spot to spend the night.

Despite the concentration of tourists boats, it's still possible to see the age old sight of fishing boats going out to sea, but with the unusual backdrop of karst peaks.

Cuttlefish are a speciality here.

And no number of tourists can take away the wonder of Sung Sot cave - the creative power of the sea dissolving limestone.

We then flew south to the second city of Vietnam, Ho Chi Minh City - named after the founder of the modern country, who fought against Japanese, French and American occupations, but who died six years before the North Vietnamese capture of the city (then called Saigon) and the final unification of an independent country.

Ho Chi Minh City is a stone's throw from the delta of the mighty Mekong river.

We travelled up river and just enjoyed watching the local businesses pass by.

Back on land, we watched the staple food of rice being loaded off barges and weighed.

Then it was onto bicycles, as the best way to tour the local villages.

Visiting local markets is a great way to have a snap shot of the culture and biology of a region. A display of vegetables also provides the aesthetic delight of shapes and colours - here some bright green bitter melons are surrounded by earthy root vegetables such as sweet potatoes, yams, and yam beans.

Jackfruit (Artocarpus heterophyllus) belongs to the fig and mulberry family.

Duck is a favoured meat in south-east Asia.

Fish has to be a staple on one of the worlds largest river deltas.

Eating Ricefield Rats (Rattus argentiventer) provides a great source of protein, and reduces a crop pest.

But eating wild animals in these wetlands must also be sustainable. I guess the frog populations may be resilient to harvest.

Snakes I can imagine could be more under threat.

Wild birds in cages always saddens me, whether or not the populations are threatened. Here we see Slaty-breasted Rails (Lewinia striata)...

...Water-browed Crakes (Poliolimnas cinereus)...

...and Oriental Darters (Anhinga melanogaster).

On a more joyful note, it seems we had arrived during the wedding season. A great excuse to dress up...

...and for drunk uncles to show off their moves.

The road eventually led to the town of Can Tho, and back to the scooter bustle that is Vietnam.

In one of the schools children practiced their martial arts under the watchful eye of Ho Chi Minh.

With night fall the crowds emerge out into the cool air to mingle in the street markets...

...and to enjoy some entertainment in the park.

Soon it was time to escape the crowds again, and go back out into the bush. Cat Tien National Park, 150 km north of Ho Chi Minh City, is one of the largest areas of lowland tropical forest left in Vietnam.

A consultant for my old company, retired from Imperial College in London, has set up a wildlife lodge there. We crossed the river to the park to spend a few days with him.

Many hotels provide a cheesy reception - a glass of cheap wine or some dead flowers on the pillow. At Forest Floor Lodge we had a real naturalists reception, a snake in the bedroom - a Radiated or Copperhead Ratsnake (Coelognathus radiatus). I managed to get a shot of it before it was caught.