I was exploring the area around Hue. This heat – oh my god. I tried to visit historic sites. With the humidity, the 39 degrees felt like 48. I think I’ve never experienced heat like this. I was constantly sweating and thirsty. Normally, these scooter rides give you a fresh breeze, but these days they felt like breaking through walls of heat.

So I read about the hundreds-of-years-old tradition of incense stick making in Thuy Xuan Village. My curiosity for craftsmanship and authentic traditions made me go search for the village.

On the main road, super colorful shops and arrangements for the perfectly staged tourist photo collages awaited me—set in a scenery of an ocean of pink, green, yellow incense sticks and some "show crafting". Some tourists in beautiful clothes even posed for me. Imagine them wearing those long dresses in that heat!

But my true photo treasure I found in the side roads of the village, where people really craft these products, lay them out to dry, and produce thousands of little incense huts by hand.

I just found these places by coincidence—driving and then walking the narrow roads in the insane midday heat.

It was impossible to communicate with the workers since they didn’t speak any English, but they were laughing a lot and patiently let me hang out with them and let me take photos of them doing their craft.