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Published: June 16th 2008
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Lotus flowers on a bike
This shot was taken at 6am at a lotus lake in Hanoi. Sunday 15 June 2008, I woke up at 5am and rode my motorbike to the West Lake. Around that area, there are many flower villages. I went to one of them which is located near the West Lake Water Park, in order to take photos of a lotus lake and some activities that only take place in the early hours of the morning.
The lotus season in Hanoi starts from June and lasts 3 months. Every morning from 5am to 7am, the local residents, who own the lotus lakes, tour around the lakes on very small boats (in Vietnamese, we call them “thuyền thúng”) and pick both flowers and leaves, following the orders from their clients who are waiting on the bank. This is a wholesale business. Any business people, who want to buy lotus flowers cheaply, go there to buy flowers directly from the lake owners, then sell them at their shops in Hanoi. We also can see lotus flowers on the back side of street vendors’ bicycles. Some Hanoians also go to the lotus lakes in early morning and buy flowers for their houses. The lotus flower is not only beautiful, but also has a very good smell.
The lotus lake in Hanoi
The man, who rows the small boat with a pole, is the owner of this lake. You can see his tent on the lake. June, July and August are the lotus season months in Hanoi. I am holding some lotus flowers in my hand. So I got into the lotus lake at around 6am. I watched a local man standing on a very small boat and touring on his lake. Later I found out his name was Mr. Quang. Sometimes he was back with flowers and handed them to the women waiting for him on the bank. I also watched how people covered the lotus flowers with the leaves, then packed them with bamboo strings and put them into their bikes before leaving for Hanoi’s markets.
A woman and her son were sitting on the road and taking off the inner parts of the lotus flowers. They will be mixed with tea, as a result, the tea will have a very good smell, in Vietnamese we call it "chè sen" (lotus tea). I asked the woman whether it was possible for me to join the boat with Mr. Quang. She said certainly I could, but I should wait until he finished working. I wondered how it would be, if I could rent a boat and get out on my own. She said it would be impossible, since the boat and long pole may be stuck inside the roots of those lotus trees,
so I gave up the idea of adventuring the lake on my own.
When Mr. Quang was back, I told him I wanted to join the boat with him and he agreed. His house (a 3-storey building) is located by the lake and he also has a small tent right on the lake, so I went to his tent and waited for him. I changed into a white Áo Dài (Vietnamese traditional dress) and Mr. Quang’s wife gave me her conical hat and a bunch of lotus flowers. Problem is that I went there alone, so we needed to find someone to help me take photos. The boat is too small, so close-up photos would not be good like a great view of the lake, when someone stands on the bank or sits on another boat to take photos of me.
As soon as I stepped my foot on the boat, Mr. Quang smiled and said "Look at the crowd!" who were standing on the other side of the lake. I wondered why suddenly there appeared so many people (more than 20 people) watching every move of our boat and taking photos. It turned out that they were
The lotus lake in Hanoi
I am standing on a small boat at the lotus lake in Hanoi. The man, who rows the boat with a pole, had to sit down to keep the boat balanced. Japanese tourists passing by the place and saw my Áo Dài and the boat. It must have been a beautiful Vietnamese sight for them.
We were moving toward the bank, where the Japanese tourists were standing. Mr. Quang saw his friend there and asked him to help me take some photos. Mr. Quang also thought that was the best place for taking photos, as the leaves are high and large, I could stand up and be surrounded by green color of the leaves. I handed my camera to his friend, but when we moved far away from the bank and I stood up, his friend struggled with using my camera and there was no way I could be back and explain him how to use my camera. I said “Please help me!” in Japanese, and a Japanese girl offered me a help with some shots by my camera.
Mr. Quang said that some brides and grooms also went to the lotus lake for taking their wedding photos. My photos were not as good as I expected, since there were only 2 people on the bank who could help me take my shots and they were too far from
me. I should have been there with a photographer or a friend, but I didn’t want to bother someone to go with me at 5am in the morning. At the end of the boat trip, I gave Mr. Quang VND 100,000 as a tip.
The boat ride on the lotus lake was the most interesting experience for me, when comparing with the boat rides on the bay, river or stream I’ve done. Imagine you are sitting on a very small and light boat controlled by a long pole, managing to keep the boat balanced, finding your way among the leaves and flowers (sometimes your boat hits them), holding flowers in your hands, having some worms sticking on your dress and the mud made your white dress dirty.
I said to Mr. Quang “This beautiful place in Hanoi should be preserved. We should not make this place become a land of concrete buildings” and he agreed with me.
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Franco
Franklin H
Haha-good thing you can speak Japanese. Same thing happen when I asked an elderly man to take my photo with me and a tree. Every the photo came out with the tree but not me in it. Your Lotus there are 4 times as large as those here in Hawaii.