This morning I took a (push) bike trip around the Hoi An area. It was beautiful countryside. Our guide took us on back lanes with no cars and few other vehicles. While riding, we saw a man grilling a pork belly in his front yard to sell later that day at the market. He has to turn that handle back and forth for an hour.
Next we went to the village where they grow water coconuts. They kind of look like coconut palms, but they grow in shallow water, kind of like mangroves. The fruit grows at the base of the tree, has no liquid, and is inedible, but they cut down the branches, dry them, and use them in construction. Interesting. We took a boat ride in one of those floating bathtubs through the groves. Once you turned off the river, you could wander forever in circles. It reminded me of the Everglades.
Then we rode through a village of small rice paddies and vegetable gardens. Beautiful gardens for as far as you could see. They water by hand with those two watering cans on a shoulder board. That sucker is heavy.
They fed us an incredible lunch at a restaurant right next to the fields. They really mean farm to fork here.
In the afternoon I took a guided tour of the exceptionally well-preserved example of a South-East Asian trading port dating from the 15th to the 19th century. It is a little touristy. Actually, it is what Old Sac would love to be. Old buildings that are now shops and restaurants, and hundreds of tourists wandering around. It is really quite lovely. It is a little hard, however, to understand the historical significance from the information they give us.
I want to live in the righteousness of the old town once so merry prosperous.
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