It looked for all the world like a giant half coconut, marooned on the sand. As I drew closer, I saw that it was, in fact, a large basket made from woven bamboo, though I still could not work out what it was doing on the beach in a remote part of central Vietnam. Then I peered over the rim, finding a couple of fishing nets and an oar stashed inside. It seemed that what I had stumbled across was a basket impersonating a boat.
Tea Leaves
Lessons from Vietnamese basket cases
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Circular boats known as thuyen thung rest on a beach in central Vietnam. (Photo by Andrew Benfield)
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