Keep it clean

Despite the intensity of human existence here and the minimal infrastructure the cities are remarkably clean and vermin free. Personal spaces are kept meticulously clean with rubbish collected in neat piles in the gutter. Street cleaners gather the rubbish by walking the streets with wheelie bins.

In Saigon recycling was taken very seriously - a livelihood for some. We were staggered by the loads of carefully sorted styrofoam, cardboard, plastics etc that recycling women on bikes carted around.


image: robynejay

Unfortunately the ´gather it in the gutter´ process doesn´t work on water. Halong Bay is suffering from the sludge and debris from junks and the tourist trade gathering in huge drifts on the current, and unfortunately ending on the shores of the islands where local women collect shellfish. With increasing traffic, keepers of the World Heritage listed area are going to have to address the issue or this superb area will suffer.


image: robynejay