halong bay floating fishing village

in halong bay i had the opportunity to visit a floating fishing village.

i have major issues with visiting places where traditionally disenfranchised people live. (look, a people zoo!) while i'm still not completely sure what my take on this is, in my mind it starts to become redeemable if you do it with organizations that actually give back to the community. in this case, profits from tourism fund a school for the village children, something they formerly did not have. other benefits include income generation, awareness raising, and cultural exchange. still, i think it should be done with great care.

anyhow, this village was really amazing: everyone's house is tied together to keep from floating away. there were lots of children laughing and playing, the colors were so vibrant, and surprisingly quite a few large pet dogs roaming about.

traditional rowboats taking us to the fishing village.

this woman was rowing the boat i was in. another cool part was that after introducing tourism to the area, they started an anti-litter campaign. (obviously tourists don't want to see a bunch of trash, but we'll pretend it was for environmental reasons. either way, i guess the ends justify the means?) now all of people in the village have nets on the back of their boats so they scoop up trash they see.

we visited a pearl farm and learned about how they harvest them from oysters. this is the income generation bit of the scheme. (sorry mom, they were expensive!) in the back you can see the boat we sailed on, called a junk.