One of our touring highlights in Central Vietnam was a day of traditional farming and fishing in Hoi An. Russ took a vacation from the itinerary and opted to stay home with an economics book (?!) while the kids and I took off on a special eco-tour.
We drove to the outskirts of the Farming Village and hopped on bikes. We peddled
sans helmets or paved roads to the fields which make up the Village. There were hundreds of small farms all nestled together for as far as you could see. We were told that they have been tended by 3,000 families for multiple generations. The plots were meticulously arranged and filled with many of the herbs which are integral to Vietnamese cuisine: we tasted Vietnamese peppermint, garlic chives, coriander, lemon basil, and a range of baby lettuces. We met Mrs. Sim, a septuagenarian, who welcomed us to her field and showed us how to carry water, turn the soil, and harvest tender herbs. We learned how the earth is amended with seaweed to become nutrient-rich and how tender sprouts are protected by natural “tents” made of gigantic coconut fronds. I marveled at the vibrant shades of green which surrounded us, a testimony to Mrs. Sim’s labors which would be remarkable at any age but were astounding for someone over 70.
After leaving the farms, we cycled for 5 km along a bucolic path which took us through rice paddies and along several small waterways. We paused to greet a particularly welcoming-looking mother water buffalo and her calf; the kids got up close and personal. Then we continued on and met some fishermen who invited the kids to inspect their recent catch.
After an hour or so, we reached a pier where our boat was waiting. We climbed aboard and sailed out toward a traditional fishing village. Along the way, we made a detour into a water coconut marsh where the crew plopped two woven bamboo “basket boats” overboard. I looked dubiously at them, thinking that there was no way I was going to ride in what essentially amounted to an oversized bread basket. Much to my surprise, they stayed afloat when with us inside. I decided then and there that perhaps baby Moses really did float down the Nile in a basket after all.
For their part, the kids had a blast trying to row and mostly ended up going in circles. The crew showed them how to make all kinds of amazing toys out of the coconut palm fronds: Carter’s favorite was a missile launcher, while Katherine loved the pinwheel, puppet, and finger jewelry. I looked at the marsh with different eyes when I was told that during the war the Viet Cong would hide in and under the massive foliage, using it as camouflage for firing anti-air artillery.
We left the marsh and met up with a fisherman on his small canoe. He was casting a net and hauling in small silver fish. We were invited to come aboard and the kids got to help haul in the net. We then went ashore and tried our hand at
throwing the nets. Suffice it to say that it is definitely not as easy as it looks, and we were nowhere near as graceful as our friend. We did, however, get very wet and had a great time.
Then, to our surprise and delight, we got a chance to operate a gigantic fishing trap. We had seen these large square nets suspended on bamboo poles all along the riverbank. The net is lowered by a sort of DaVinci-esque cycling mechanism: you use your feet to push the pedal and your hand to catch the top crank and slowly but surely you raise or lower the net. The net is allowed to settle for a half-hour or more and is then v-e-r-y slowly raised so that the fish don’t get frightened and scurry away. Once we raised the net, we got back inside the basket boats and floated out underneath it. We then tapped the net with a long stick to maneuver the fish to a tiny opening at the edge where they all tumbled into a basket on Katherine’s lap. Several preferred Katherine’s lap to the basket, which surprised Katherine quite a bit.
We ended our afternoon with a luncheon feast back on the boat: crispy shrimp spring rolls, stuffed calamari, steamed king prawns, and crispy pancakes with fresh herbs from Mrs. Sim’s garden.
At the end of the day we couldn’t decide whether we would prefer to be fishermen or farmers, but we all agreed that the day had been incredible.
