Incense along the road

In Hue, Vietnam, Anita and I decided to rent bicycles and look around, we headed south to the tomb of Tu Duc, the longest-reigning Nguyen emperor. On the map the route seemed short and flat, unfortunately, it was not flat, with a WHEEEE we went down the first hill and then realized we had to go back up the same amount we had just came down; with some effort we peddled up and were on the flat again. When we reached the top, we spotted a very colorfully display that we thought was incense, come to find out it was just the sticks the incense is placed on.

It was early morning and the shop keeper was not yet available, we went to the next shop to take a photo of her display and were shooed away. We were back on the bicycles toward the tomb, and found several more shops with similar displays. We met a woman who was setting up to make incense by hand. She had a large mass of incense on a slanted narrow table, she wrapped a little around the stick and then twirled the sick and rolled the flat device to pull the incense from the pile, all the time working to cover the stick. She was fast.

She spoke very little English but gave Anita a short course in making incense sticks.

Anita said she thinks she should stick to her day job, rolling incense sticks did not come naturally.