Tam Dao National Park, Vietnam

[Chong Boy]

Just returned from a couple of days in Tam Dao National Park and here's a few snaps of the weekend.

On the way North from Hanoi this garish pink house stuck out so I snapped it...



Then looked back and saw the other side. left bare, why??? maybe they ran out of paint!


Passed some women taking their cows for a feed/walk.



Still make me smile in Asia when I see people crammed onto their bike with far too much stock. Poor girl on the front has no room at all


Stall selling bread on the road side, looks nice but the bread is nearly hollow. No fluffy white centre. Shame.

[Chong Boy]

arriving at Tam Dao town with a nice view of the hillside houses and hotels. Hotels were from 200,000 to 1M VND. Not bad seeing the most expensive resort was about 1M VND or 2000Baht! I stayed in a 400,000 VND hotel which was ok. Nothing fancy but clean, tidy and friendly


Looking back down to the flat rice paddy lands below...


and across the lower part of town..


Heading up from the previous pic you come to the main part of town which goes around the hilltop in a horse shoe. View across the hilltop valley. Public pool in the middle of town. Was very busy before the thunder started.


There's quite a few new hotels springing up on the hillside and business will probably be good as a lot of buses come from Hanoi with locals. We saw 2 white girls and 1 guy while there. All the rest were Vietnamese tourists to spend the weekend in the cool weather.


EVERY spare inch of land was used to grow this veg. Anyone know what it is? Not very strong in taste and nice when dipped in lime, chilli and salt dip.
The big leaves aren't eaten, just the small leaves at the end with the curly stringy bit.

[Chong Boy]

Lots of wildlife in the jungle.
Met a few people walking through a jungle track and they pulled out a couple of snapping turtles.
One big and this little critter. Felt pretty bad because I knew the poor buggers were on there way to a pot but it was cool to see them...


and loads of butterflies everywhere, saw more that 2 days than in my whole life I think. hard to photo them though with a cheap camera

This shot I was really happy with.. lucky focus...


Lots of spiders similar to Thai ones...


Never seen one of these before though! huge sack and many colours...


and literally thousands of glass hoppers, maybe 20 different types.. heres a couple...

and this colourful little one. Saw a few huge ones with bright red wings when they flew


and a dragon fly with a monkey mask (if you look closely!)

[unkleblacky]

great pics poor old terry pin

[kingwilly]

nice, thanks for the effort.

Vietnam is a great country to travel through.

[Loombucket]

If you can manage these with a cheap camera, you are going to be stiff competition when you get your hands on something better. Nothing quite so beautifull as a butterfly on the wing, good work.

[Chong Boy]

^ Thanks, I actually went out at the weekend and bought a Canon EOS 'Kiss X3' or 500D elsewhere. I was spurred by that weekend to get better pics.
Off to Ninh Binh province with work today so it will be the trial. (I have no idea how to use it yet lol)

[Anja09]

great pics. The pink house is strange though. There aren't even any mentionable windows...

[tropixblue]

Houses in Vietnam are usually built long and narrow (tubes) because of archaic building regulations that limit frontage width. The side wall/s are unpainted, without windows because the adjoining land belongs to someone else who may build his wall attached to the neighboring house or just a few centimeters next to it. It's not uncommon to see the side walls of neighboring houses with just a crack of space in between.

[XAGT72]

Totally true on this one. The Vietnamese Government taxes a house on the width of the front of the property, and that is why everything is so narrow but goes up 5 or 6 levels and a long way back. Anything to beat the tax man

And that is why they don't paint the sides or back of houses, or usually have windows in them. Why waste money on things that are going to be covered. Plus, very few Vietnamese every move from the family property, if they come in to money they knock the house down and rebuild it bigger and better. We went to Lao for a 2 week break and came back to see our neighbours house completely demolished, but then fully rebuilt 2 weeks later. It turned out they had a very good year with the business. Only spend what you have to it seems, as you never know when it is to be knocked down.

Houses in Vietnam are usually built long and narrow (tubes) because of archaic building regulations that limit frontage width. The side wall/s are unpainted, without windows because the adjoining land belongs to someone else who may build his wall attached to the neighboring house or just a few centimeters next to it. It's not uncommon to see the side walls of neighboring houses with just a crack of space in between.