Incense Sticks Drying in the Sun near Hue, Vietnam

Today’s travel photo is a close up of some bunches of incense sticks drying in the sun in a small village near Hue, Vietnam. One thing I learnt a long time ago from travelling in Asia is that if you take a tour somewhere, there is almost always some “bonus stops” along the way. When I say “bonus”, I mean the tour stops in places that you don’t even know are on the tour. Sometimes this can be annoying, while sometimes it can work out pretty well. I took this particular photo during one of these “bonus stops” on my tour of the Imperial Tombs outside of Hue. We had pulled up at a small village where they happen to make a lot of incense, along with a few other handicrafts.

It was actually quite interesting to watch them making the incense sticks by hand. They do it very efficiently and there seems to be a real knack to it. After they roll the sticks, they bundle them up and put them out in the sun to dry. In this village there were piles like this all along the side of the road, where ever there was plenty of sunlight. It was a very colourful display.