more photos from the Vietnamese countryside

Vietnam's such a low lying country, the water table is very high. Most houses in the countryside have waterfilled ponds on their lands, which they use for cultivation.

tobacco plantation in front of a countryside cemetery. There's a tendency for people to bury their dead in the middle of fields or plantations, if the deceased worked on the land. The shrines in the fields, perhaps bring a sense of the spirits watching over the success of the crops and the family left behind. They are Catholic in majority in some areas here, a legacy from the French missionaries.