Quang Phu Cau, where the incense dries in the yard

An hour south of Hanoi there are yards where the ground is invisible under red. Bundles of incense sticks stand fanned open in circles, hundreds of them, drying in the sun.

Quang Phu Cau is a working commune rather than an attraction, and knowing what happens in those yards changes the visit.

What is in a stick of huong?

Three materials and two jobs. The core is a splinter of bamboo, 30 to 40 cm long and shaved to about the thickness of a matchstick. The bottom third carries the dye — pink, red, occasionally yellow — and that is the end you hold.

Workers mix the powder to a paste, roll it onto the wet stick, and put the whole thing out to dry for a day or two. Nothing about it is decorative: an offering takes an odd number of sticks, and the etiquette guide explains why three is the usual choice.

Why does the yard look like that?

Because a tied bundle dries badly. Opened into a circle, every stick gets air on all sides, and a household can dry several thousand at once on a patch of concrete the size of a living room.

The fanned circle is the whole reason the photograph exists. Nobody arranged the yards for visitors: the shape is what drying requires, and it turned out to be spectacular.

Where exactly is it?

Ung Hoa district, about 35 km from the centre of Hanoi, reached in an hour by road. The commune covers several hamlets and the drying yards are scattered between them, so a rider circles for a while rather than parking at one entrance.

The commune runs no ticket office, no marked route and no signage in English. Ask, point at a camera, and somebody will wave you into a yard.

When are the yards full?

Before Tet, above all. Demand for incense peaks at the lunar new year. The weeks running up to it are when every household is producing at capacity — the Tet guide covers what else moves in that period.

Outside that window, go mid-morning on a dry day. Rain stops the whole operation, because the drying is outdoors and the sticks come in before the first drops. A wet week means a village with nothing in the yards at all.

What do the families ask for?

Fifty to a hundred thousand dong a person is the common figure at a household used to visitors, and more where somebody is posed among the bundles in an ao dai. That is a few dollars at about 26,000 dong to the dollar.

Pay it without negotiating. You are standing in somebody's workplace and the sticks are stock rather than scenery. The households that welcome photographers do so because the fee has become a real part of the income. The photography guide covers the wider question of asking first.

Is there anything to buy?

Boxes and bundles, if you want them, though the trade here is wholesale. Sacks of 500 sticks go to temples, markets and export, and a visitor buying three boxes is not the business.

If you do buy, buy the scented sticks rather than the plain ones, and expect a price close to what a Hanoi shop charges. The saving is not the point of the trip.

Does it fit with anything else?

Quang Phu Cau belongs with the pottery at Bat Trang and the silk at Van Phuc: single-trade communes that the craft villages guide lays out side by side. Of the set, this is the one where you look rather than buy.

Pair it with Huong Pagoda if you have a full day — both lie south of the city on the same road out, and the pilgrimage site is the largest single consumer of what these yards produce.