the page design. This, the second in the series of pages about Quốc Lộ 32 (Highway 32) in northern Vietnam, shows one of the most eye catching features of the route - the hillside terracing with their dotting of houses. When on the steep slopes these are stilted like Thai houses, and certainly many are no more than small huts to let the farmers be close to their land for particular seasons. Here it is their aesthetic appeal that is being fully indulged, accordingly comments are restricted. Route 32 runs for some 200 miles (350 kms); most of these photos are from the northern part of the road.
A stilt house near the top of its terraces
Terraces dropping away from a village
...and just a hint of terracing
Houses with views...
What might the estate agent's blurb say in praise of this house's situation?
Hillsides can seem like a morse code of dashes (terraces)
and dots (houses)
This is the same view as seen in the photo just below, but taken some 10 years earlier
This is a photo which epitomises views on the winding drive along Route 32. The changes in 10 years are not great, but the trees on the hill towards the right are gone and the terracing seems to have been extended on the far left hillside
A woman sitting looking down the valley (parts of which are seen above and below)
Upstream from where the woman was sitting, the terracing gives way to trees and scrub
A tongue of terraced hill, formed by the river
The extent of these terraced hillsides seems daunting, imagine climbing up and down this slope during your day's work
This shot shows the context of the two houses in the following photo, below-left
Two stilt houses with attendant bamboos
Here the steep terracing is giving way to fields in the valley floor
Man (with child) working by the house shown above-right
Three water spouts taking water down three terraces
These lines of terracing, of a steep hillside, almost seem to introduce a mild form of interference pattern to the photograph
Dropping down to the valley floor where the steep terraces become barely sloping fields
There is to be more on these field patterns on the next Picture Posting page
Cows grazing the terraced 'fields' which, with the drop in gradient,
have become wider
Right down to the valley floor here with a village amongst the trees
A closer view of the house and its veranda
And, lastly, a closer view of that man, his house,s and his home field
Trailers...
The next Picture Posting page
takes you down to the patterning of those fields nearer the valley floors
The next page
of the Mosaic Section is headed 'Greed'.
Or go to the contents Go to the contents of the Mosaic Section. of the Mosaic Section.
...guide to this site