Day 7 - Some tours

We set the alarm for 4:45am for a 'sunrise' tour of “My Son” where there are many ancient monuments from the Champa Kingdom (dates from between the 5th century AD to the 17th century). There were lots of the usual Buddhist and Hindu carvings into stone and brick monuments/temples/alters/etc.



It was extra special to be the first ones on site. You get to walk around the dense jungle tracks by yourself and feel like you are discovering these monuments for the first time. They are very old and overgrown with grass and moss, so they look pretty special.



We got back to the hotel just as the morning was starting to get hot - so we climbed back into bed and had another hours sleep.


Later that day we went on a tour called "2 hours with farmer" which we spotted in some obscure little tour agency run by one man. There are all sorts of tours you can do here – diving, fishing, boat trips, monuments, etc – Hoi An really revolves around the tourism industry. But this little tour was different since the owner of that agency turned out to be an ex-rice farmer who had many relatives who still lived off the land who we could visit.

So we met him at his shop with our hired bikes, he yelled at the wife to take over the shop and hopped on his bicycle and off we went. Hundreds of motorbikes and trucks swerved around us, honking their horns, stirring up dust and belching exhaust fumes in our faces. He said how happy he was that we booked his tour as it was an excuse to get out of the shop and get some fresh air - the irony was totally lost on the poor chap!

We got out into the countryside to visit a market garden - with hundreds of little rows of all sorts of herbs and vegetables. He showed us some of the very manual methods for planting, watering and picking the crops and told us about the struggle between the growers - who want to own their own plots, and the government who want to pay the growers a salary - but then take all the profits made.



Then we went to a rice field that his friend owned and we saw some of the methods they use for growing rice. They still use water-buffalo for ploughing.



The highlight was the optional sit-down at the end of the tour with his friend and family for a few beers. This experience was worth the cost of the tour alone. It’s just what we came here to experience - some basic family life, with an English translator who could answer our questions about everyday life here. We learned about schooling (about US$20 per month per child - a huge amount of money for these people), weddings (lots of drinking), business (he shared a new tourism business idea with us and wanted our feedback), and humor (we asked for some examples of local humor - its pretty basic and the usual sexist and dirty jokes that you would hear back home over a few beers).

All round it was lots and lots of fun - and so much better than all those poor tourists sitting in bars down-town paying 'tourist' prices for their fancy drinks and talking rubbish.

The "2 hours with Farmer" was good, but the extra "2 hours drinking with Farmer" was much more fun!