Quang Phu Cau is the incense village Hanoi locals and photographers talk about: a rural commune about 35\u201340 km south of the city where thousands of families make incense sticks and bamboo sticks for incense. On dry, sunny days, bundles of bright red and magenta sticks are fanned out like flowers in yards, on roadsides and on rooftops to dry \u2014 a sight that has made the village famous on social media.<\/p>\n
The craft has been practised here for generations, and today it supports around 3,000 families. Most incense in Vietnam is burned daily on home and shop altars and at pagodas and temples, and demand peaks before Tet (Lunar New Year), so the village is busiest and most colourful from autumn into January.<\/p>\n
Bamboo is split into thin sticks and dried. The base of each stick is dyed red or another bright colour, which is the part you see fanned out in the yards. The upper part is then coated with a paste of sawdust, natural resins and aromatic powders, rolled by hand or machine, and sun-dried again until hard. Some families specialise in sticks, others in the paste or in finished incense, and much of the work still happens in family courtyards.<\/p>\n
The village itself is free to walk around. The most photogenic drying yards are set up for visitors with platforms and props, and usually charge a photo fee. Remember that this is a working village: the incense is a product, not a decoration, so move carefully around the drying bundles.<\/p>\n
Our Instagram tour goes there by vintage army jeep or green limo, with a guide who helps with photos, a hands-on incense workshop with local artisans and a visit to the nearby Chuong conical hat village.<\/p>\n
Yes, especially for photographers. On dry, sunny days the yards of Quang Phu Cau are fanned out with thousands of bright red and magenta incense sticks, a sight that is at its most colourful from September to January, in the run-up to Tet. The village is free to walk, though the set-up photo yards with platforms and props charge a fee. Remember it is a working village \u2013 the incense is a product, so move carefully around the drying bundles.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Das malerische Dorf s\u00fcdlich von Hanoi, in dem hunderttausende leuchtend rote R\u00e4ucherst\u00e4bchen wie Bl\u00fctenf\u00e4cher in der Sonne trocknen \u2013 eines der faszinierendsten Fotomotive Vietnams.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":36,"menu_order":22,"template":"","eta_destination":[9],"class_list":["post-186","eta_place","type-eta_place","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ecotripasia.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/eta_place\/186","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ecotripasia.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/eta_place"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ecotripasia.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/eta_place"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ecotripasia.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/eta_place\/186\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ecotripasia.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/36"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ecotripasia.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=186"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"eta_destination","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ecotripasia.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/eta_destination?post=186"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}