Diane Snider Photos

Nha Trang has the surprising population of about 200,00 and is growing rapidly, growth being mentioned by a guide as being Vietnam's biggest problem throughout the entire country. The majority of Vietnamese people are involved in an agrarian way of life as farmers, fishermen, and foresters and do not really look forward to changing their ways to adjust to a growing commercial way of life. As several tour guides explained: "Our people want to live in rural areas on the ground with our own yards and grow our own foods.

Chances are what you noticed first in this photo are the scarves the women are both wearing across their face. You'll see this on about 99% of Vietnam's women who ride motorcycles and/or bicycles because they wish to protect their face from the grit and dirt blown up from all the roadways they ride on. Some scarves are of gorgeous silk and tied fashionably, others are of screaming colors and fastened by loops over the ears, and some are pinned - you'll note many different types, all of which can be pulled down easily to allow the wearers immediate access to easier eating and talking.

This particular spot serves as the central transportation hub for the port area of Nha Trang. It is jam full of taxies, buses, ferry boats, fishing boats, bicyclists, street vendors, and even visiting backpackers awaiting trips out to the various nearby islands.

It's good the owners of these motorcycles covered them even partially as within the hour of this photo, a drenching rain came up very suddenly . I wasn't so lucky - I didn't have any raincoat with me! Just coverage for my camera!

Vietnam is said to be the third largest rice exporter in the world and much of it goes out of this very port of Nha Trang. It's highly likely that most of the rice itself comes from rice paddies throughout this Nha Trang area and the farmers here are highly dependent on motorcycles, motorbikes and bicycles for their daily transportation to and from those rice paddies.

I thought for sure the basket of fish and the pail would fall off as she rode away from the ferry/bus station area but no, she had them both firmly secured and she roared off successfully with her load.

The more time I spent watching the activity in this particular harbor, the more I thought about ants nests when they break open and the ants scurry in all directions at the same time. It seemed to me that was the way the ferry boats operated yet I didn't see any boat bump into another but wow, I certainly thought they would get in each other's way and have some collisions. And who would guess there would be a sky ride above all this harbor activity!