Last summer I visited my girlfriend and her folks in Vietnam. There were bonsai at most of the tourist attractions we went to, and I thought I'd share a few pics of my favorites.
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Think this is a Ficus Benjamina, which was far and away the most common species among the bonsai I saw. Amazing root-over-rock. There were tons of bonsai of this size or larger.
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This is probably my favorite bonsai and my favorite angle. I went back to take another picture of it. Something about the proportions makes it really attractive.
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same bonsai, different angle.
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A lot of bonsai were in this style of plants on rocks in a pond. Certainly makes watering easier. Actually, watering bonsai in Vietnam seems to be easy in general. Half the year is the rainy season where it rains once a day every day. Its also easy to get aerial roots since many areas have high humidity. I actually saw Desert Roses that were hung from strings, with their roots dangling in the air, growing happily.
I saved my favorite for last. Root over rock, cascade, and over a pool of water. You can see the aluminum wires clearly at the lower left. Many of the big bonsai I saw were wired up. I'd really like to copy this style at some point, on a much smaller scale.
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GardenerX: There are many species that lend themselves to cascade styles, and many that lend themselves to root over rock, but I'm not sure there are many that can do both and then grow with apparently no soil other than a rock resting in water. That particular species is a Ficus Benjamina or weeping fig, as far as I can tell. It's one of the easiest species to work with for bonsai in warm climates and indoors. It grows pretty fast and has very aggressive roots. They're also very easy to find, I've found them at HEB (grocery store) and Home Depot. They're also very easy to propagate as cuttings, and the drooping leaves lend themselves quite well to the cascade style. They drop leaves when stressed and don't handle massive reductions well, but overall they're excellent for the task at hand. Ficus microcarpa or ficus salicifolia would be my next choices for species.