Vietnamese boats

[Mattie82]

Re: Vietnamese boats

Rick, I will be posting a few, so keep an eye out for 'em. Don't want to empty the shot locker all at once, so just five or six at a time over a couple of weeks.
Rob

[JayInOz]

Re: Vietnamese boats

Looking forward to lots more piccies Rob! Great stuff! JayInOz

[Mattie82]

Re: Vietnamese boats

OK, same stretch of the Rach Ong Chuong [Ong Chuong Canal] on the way to Cho Moi from Long Xuyen by sampan. Photo of a different yard and zooming in a bit closer...building the large river junks, mostly used for transporting rice and rice chaf / rice straw....





To illustrate use, right next to the boat yard one of the river junks being loaded: as light as the baskets are and looking at the retaining framework and screens I would say this load is of rice chaf. Un-milled rice is a much heavier cargo and a load of it is pretty much packed below the level of the combing, as the final two photos will show...





And a couple of shots of one of the junks underway on the Ong Chuong Canal loaded with un-milled rice...




Again, regards...Rob

[Mattie82]

Re: Vietnamese boats

On a roll here this morning and it's raining so I'm stuck in the house for a bit. To continue, a photo of one of the river junks underway light out on one of the major branches of the Mekong, the Hau Giang, below Chau Doc:



We stopped for lunch at Cho Moi, leaving our chartered sampan under the one end of a bridge and crossed into town. When I was last here in the early 70s, Cho Moi was a quiet small village under many trees, with mostly unpaved lanes instead of streets. Today it can't be called a village any more.



On the Cho Moi side of the bridge I looked down on some boat construction...







Nice, being able to see inside the open hold of one of these junks. Historically, these large river junks were poled against the current or rode with the current and sometimes used small sails. When engines showed up, for many years the junks were tendered by small inboard "pushers", I photographed a number of those in the early 70s. The crew / owners lived in the large house aft. Since I had been here last during the war, it seems that most of the large junks have had engines installed inboard and I didn't see any of the small tenders this time. Putting an engine in what was quarters necessitated moving outside of the space and I saw a lot of the junks with "back porches" built on them...and a lot of them with wheelhouses built above the houses aft which previously were quarters. Regrettable in many ways, but progress. The large quarters aft were airy, quiet except for water noises and family life, with all the wonderful wood bulkheads and decks unpainted and natural. This is a new wheelhouse being readied on the canal bank.



Regards...Rob

[Mattie82]

Re: Vietnamese boats

Small boat, "ghe" in Vietnamese or "sampans", plenty of those and plenty of photos. I didn't get into any "boat" shops so the images are of just boats busy at their tasks. The pivoting, long-tailed engines were already in common use on small boats back in the late 60s, early 70s. You still see boats rowed from a standing position on the stern, and you see everywhere the small engines in use, "outboard" with very few engine boxes for inboard engines in the small boats. The long-tailed engines have gotten larger and there are some fairly substantial boats using one or two of them for propulsion.








Then the engines. I've "pushed" these images through Photoshop to emphasize the engines; don't want anyone to think that Viet Nam is "black-and-white", like me being surprised when I went to Ha Noi for the first time in 2005 and was surprised that it was "in color".





And just to be sure and hold your interest, a random shot of another large river junk being built:



Warm regards...Rob

[Mattie82]

Re: Vietnamese boats

More, small boats, larger boats with "outboard, long-tailed" engines, stuff.....





There is a tail shaft emerging from behind those checked pajama bottoms hanging to dry over the rudder from the "back porch". I don't think "poop" is the correct term to use, but I mention it here anyway. It's nice to have your coconut dealer show up door-to-door in the morning, saving you the trip to the market.









Kind of a "salad" of images. These are "boat" people in the truest sense of the expression.

Regards...Rob

[Mattie82]

Re: Vietnamese boats

I will get back to the Mekong Delta but wanted to post some photos from Ha Long Bay in northern Viet Nam. We took the lunch cruise and the weather was nice and the food was OK, the company was fun on the boat and the passage through some of the islands was very scenic. I have spent a couple of days on this bay five years ago and made a much more thorough tour of the entire bay. We stayed overnight and the next morning got a cab to the market at Hong Gai, across the big bridge. After a couple of hours in the market I asked the cab driver to take us to where the fishing boats docked. He told us that they were out fishing, but I wanted to go anyway. We ended up at the typhoon anchorage and the boats that didn't go fishing were there "a plenty", and I got some wonderful photos [I think anyway]. I will make a couple of postings and show some of them. First from the lunch cruise out on the bay...





The two boats in the second image are trawling ahead, a net is suspended between the two long poles which project forward off of the two sides of the boats. These were the only boats in the north that I saw which had eyes. When they were moored in the anchorage, they moored stern-in side-by-side and with the much wider for'd end of the fishing rig, several of them moored made a "daisy", reminding me of some of the yacht rendezvous in New England when the boats would moor the same way.



Then on to the storm anchorage where all the boats were...







I will follow this posting with a couple of more from Ha Long Bay.

Rob

[Mattie82]

Re: Vietnamese boats

A few more in the storm anchorage at Ha Long Bay, these all were taken in December of 2011. Actually I will show me taking some of them....



And to the boats...











This is Ha Long Bay for now.

Regards...Rob

[JayInOz]

Re: Vietnamese boats

Excellent Rob- thanks Did you get to see any of the smaller boats being built? JayInOz

[RFNK]

Re: Vietnamese boats

Terrific Rob! Thanks again for posting all these! Looks like you had a great trip

Rick

[Mattie82]

Re: Vietnamese boats

Excellent Rob- thanks Did you get to see any of the smaller boats being built? JayInOz

Jay, I was in Viet Nam with my wife and on a relatively tight schedule so unfortunately didn't get to see that. Even in the Mekong Delta the boats I saw being built were the larger river junks. The wife is an excellent traveling companion and after 40 years of marriage is quite interested in a lot of things I follow, but this was her first time in northern Viet Nam and getting her into a boat shop was not on the schedule. She has visited a few boat shops and blacksmith establishments for me when home in the Mekong Delta, making wonderful photos and being quite proud of bringing those home to me in the US, but Ha Long Bay was a "whole new world" to her.

[JayInOz]

Re: Vietnamese boats

Understood Rob! My wife is also a great travelling companion but there are limits Actually I was talking to a friend the other day who was just about to drive her husband five hours down the coast so that he could attend a bicycle ride for the weekend. I asked her if she had any interest in it or was just bored to death at all these events- she replied that she didn't mind at all- he has a well paid job and she has a black belt in shopping JayInOz

[PaulC]

Re: Vietnamese boats

A lot of people in these pictures wear surgical masks, why is that?

I do enjoy all of your posts. I am glad you keep them coming!

[Mattie82]

Re: Vietnamese boats

A lot of people in these pictures wear surgical masks, why is that?

Paul, this is common in Asia. The masks are thought to help prevent colds and the spread of disease, and they also serve as dust filters. In a country with lots of dirt paths and lanes plus other sources of dust the masks help prevent the inhalation of that.

[RFNK]

Re: Vietnamese boats

Paul, this is common in Asia. The masks are thought to help prevent colds and the spread of disease, and they also serve as dust filters. In a country with lots of dirt paths and lanes plus other sources of dust the masks help inhalation of that.

Actually, although that's probably quite true in many parts of Asia, it's not the main reason why masks are so common in Vietnam. You'll notice that nearly all, if not all, of the people with masks are women. Vietnamese women work very hard to ensure that their skin is not darkened by the sun - this is why they wear face masks, long sleeves and slacks, and gloves - and hats, of course. Surgical masks are not common in Vietnam. The masks you see are mainly just cotton material. Having said that, many women do enjoy the advantage of not breathing in dust and car fumes while wearing these masks on their motorbikes and bicycles, but it's not the main reason for this practice.

Rick