Day 226: An Organic Vegetable Farm — Basket Boat Comedy/Fiasco
The first activity of the day (which wasn’t on our original itinerary) was a visit to Tra Que Vegetable Village — and organic vegetable farm between the beach where we’re staying and the old town.
We arrived to a delicious welcome drink of lemon basil and ginger.
Then we were offered gardening clothes and traditional straw hats before heading out to explore the garden with one of the guides.
James asked to stay back in the little cafe with Jan and that was cool with us.
There were a handful of quiet tourists, but far from a trap. It was tranquil, cool for Willa to see and authentic. We were introduced to a veteran farmer, Mr Sua who showed us his hoe’ing, raking, planting and watering techniques. We loved it.
After exploring the garden we came back into the little shaded outdoor cafe for a surprise foot massage. What a treat. Have you ever seen more spoiled kids? The ladies were OBSESSED with James.
Back to the SUV.
Have we mentioned that we’re obsessed with how much stuff the Vietnamese carry on their scooters and motorcycles? We saw a photo book called Bikes of Burden on the boat in Ha Long Bay and ordered one from Amazon.
This was our favorite from today.
And on to the next activity, which was described this way in the itinerary of our local touring operator:
This morning at around 9:00am, you will be met by your guide and transferred to a local fishing village where you will spend some time to learn about the lives of fishermen in this area and see what it’s like to be a traditional fisherman on this Hoi An fishing experience on the Cua Dai River.
Walk through the village and take the time to observe local life and gain an insight into the community here. Board a local river boat and start cruising down the Cua Dai River. When you reach a good spot, hop off the boat along the shore and try your hand at casting the Vietnamese fishing nets. Don’t worry – casting the nets takes practice, but the fisherman will offer their years of experience and advice. Then step into the unique round basket boats and learn how to paddle them. Travel by basket boat through the tranquil coconut-palm flanked waterways here and learn how the area was a hot bed of activity during the American-Vietnamese war.
It was not like this description…at all.
We were taken to a crowded tourist destination with a tour coach bus parking lot. We boarded one of hundreds of basket boats and joined an 80-person Korean tour group bobbing down the river.
We didn’t learn about fishing culture, meet any fishermen, walk through any fishing village (or even see one), try our hand at the boat basket paddling, ride any local fishing boat, hear about the war history OR try our hand at fishing — but we *did* learn that Korean tourists come to Hoi An in giant groups to have beer-fueled dance parties out on the river (this is true, a real thing!). They bring mega speakers out on these basket boats to sing dance pop karaoke at top volume while taking video and selfies. Like, three going at once! Lake Havasu spring break came to mind.
The only “fishing” involved tying a small fish head to a string, attaching the string to a small piece of bamboo and then seeing if you can get a teeeency crab to grab it for long enough to dump him into a little bucket.
Not quite our scene.
To make things worse, the edges of the waterways were covered with trash. Such a shame. Vietnam is close to Jordan and Egypt in the amount of trash seen in high traffic tourist destinations.
Luckily this was a quick stop. We headed back into the old town to have lunch at Mango Mango. It was a set 3-course menu of shared plates and thankfully they only served us as if we were a party of 2, avoiding the wasted food that usually comes with one of these set menus included with a day of touring.
After lunch we excitedly walked over the bridge and down the street to Yaly Couture for a fitting session of our custom clothes. Everyone was happy with their choices and amazed at how fast they turn around all of this different stuff. Apparently they have 300 tailors working overnight.
As we headed back to our house in the van, our guide dropped the loud and clear hint that today would be our last day with this particular driver. Before we could say anything, James yelled, “SO TIP THE DRIVER!!”
Our guide almost died of shocked laughter. Not James’s first rodeo.
Back home we took a swim to cool off, then did a couple hours of school before getting back in the pool. Margaret headed out to find some local takeout for dinner.
The kids were asleep before 8 and we were not far behind.
MISC:
The countryside landscape of Vietnam is strangely familiar (not sure if that’s the right word) because of all the movies and footage we’ve seen about the war.
It’s been surreal to see all the 50th anniversary Woodstock pics in the news while we’re here.
And the kids are reading a book that references Jimmy Hendrix, so we were playing his music on Spotify. It obviously doesn’t take us back to the time of the War… but it takes us to the movies that give us lasting images of the war, like Platoon, The Deer Hunter (for M), Good Morning Vietnam (for me), and even Forrest Gump!
I can’t imagine what this place was like in the 60s and 70s but looking at the tourists, the beaches, the restaurants, not to mention the organic vegetable co-ops…. it’s truly incredible how much has changed.
