It seems to be a tradition of sorts here that any sort of holiday that passes they will get a few of these strange round boats and let some artists decorate them for the masses.
These ones were at a beach access a bit further from where I live so even though they were painted during Tet (Lunar New Year) I never got to see them until yesterday.
This one is direct and to the point but they get a bit more creative and dare I say, silly from this point forward.
This one is my favorite of the bunch, even though I like all of them . It is now the year of the snake and while snakes are generally menacing looking creatures, there is no reason to not make them cute if we can for the kiddos, right?
Unfortunately for this one, the idea of encountering this underwater in Vietnam is pretty slim. There's a reason why there aren't a bunch of scuba diving shops here in Da Nang. That's because Vietnam has a pretty terrible track record as far as pollution of all sorts, including ocean pollution. If you were to go diving you wouldn't be looking at wonderful coral formations, you would most likely be looking at garbage.
I don't know what this has to do with Tet, or with anything for that matter, but it is cute. I would imagine that they allowed some of the kids to decorate one as well and put it out there with the others. I think I kind of recognize the little guy on the smaller float from either a cartoon or some sort of Asian snack box.
As strange as it might seem for a westerner, these basket boats aren't just for the tourists' amusement, they are actually used by the locals in their daily sea-faring lives. Nobody really knows how these things came about but the rumor is that during the French occupation of Vietnam, the then governing French authorities levied a "boat tax" and local fishermen couldn't afford to pay the tax. Therefore they made baskets that purely by happenstance of course, just happened to function also as boats.
I've seen them being used by lifeguards and fishermen getting to and from the larger boats even though in my mind anyway, a traditionally shaped boat the likes of which you are probably imagining, would make a lot more sense. Whether it is tradition or cost-oriented, these boats are used a lot around here and perhaps the rest of the country as well. I can't say for sure because I haven't actually been to very many places.
I would think that rowing would just succeed in making you go in circles but they somehow make it work. It's offered as a day tour in nearby Hoi An to ride on one of these. Perhaps one day I will get up early and do precisely that.
In the meantime I will just enjoy the artwork that pops up on the beach because they swap them out several times a year.