Day 228: Rice Farmers for a Day
Our final excursion in Hoi An continued with the fun and educational theme of “you pay us and we’ll let you do our manual labor.”
Today we were rice farmers for the day.
Best part: we used the traditional process which required help from… a water buffalo!
We first got a ride to the rice paddies on a buffalo cart pulled by Binh, a pregnant female.
Thanks for the ride Binh!
At the paddies we were given some traditional farmers getup and met male buffalo named Xe (pronounced “Say”) who gave us all rides on his back.
Xe took a several minute-long pee and a huge dump right in the mud paddies while I was riding her, but that didn’t stop Willa and James from taking their shoes off and walking right in.
They worked the plow…
Surfed the paddies to smooth out the mud…
And finally planted the rice.
Everyone got a hose down at the end and nobody loved it more than Xe.
We then went inside the family’s little demo area / kitchen and continued with the steps to make the rice, plus grinding it into rice milk which we then made into rice paper for fresh spring rolls.
Our reward for all this hard work was a delicious lunch of Vietnamese pancakes, spring rolls, mackerel with tomato sauce over white rice and cabbage soup, all washed down with local beer for the grownups and a soda water / mint / lime mocktail for the kids.
After lunch James kicked the ball with Jan while we waited for our ride.
We then went back into the Old Town to pickup our newly tailored clothes at Yaly Couture.
Back home we had a final afternoon and evening to ourselves. We did some school, then swam, snoozed, played the piano and just chilled. It’s nice having a private pool and the kids have had fun skinny dipping. James is such a modest “stuffed shirt” that it’s nice to see him loosen up. Margaret even jumped in the pool in all of her clothes just to show him how to lighten up. (Reminded me of the Cornhole Girls in St. Martin, but that’s another story.)
We walked down the street for pizza, pasta, beers and 80s music at Driftwood then headed home to pack up.
Margaret read The Witches to the kids while I caught up with my brother on a video call.
This is our sixth and final night at the Chi Villa near the beach in Hoi An. It’s such a chill, friendly, authentic spot. We’ve really loved it here.
MISC:
The ladies in the farming family were obsessed with Willa and James. Our host was talking about the difference in cultures and mentioned that Vietnamese don’t show affection to their kids in public but that Americans do. She also said she kisses her kids goodnight which she claimed was an American thing to do. She said, “We won’t kiss our kids in public but a Vietnamese man will pee in public, no problem.”
