From the city it’s possible to do a walk along a ridge line to the edge of town. Along the way you pass by temples, guest houses, spas and retreats before coming out onto rice fields and farms. It’s a hot balmy day and the farmers are tending their rice fields. It’s planting time and the fields are being prepared. Hand-walked mechanical ploughs work the sodden grounds. It’s a fascinating sight to see ploughs working in watery mud. Egrets have learnt that this will give them great food gathering opportunities so the follow the plough. It’s an interesting relationship they have with the farmers.
The men work the ploughs but it’s mainly the women that plant the rice. Individual seedlings are hand planted into the mud under water a few centimeters deep. There is something disturbingly obvious here. Nearly all of the people working the fields are elderly. Very few young people involved. What does this mean for the future of rice farming in these places?
It rains every afternoon.
My tongue is still in agony. On advice from my Facebook friends, I sourced medicine from a pharmacy. The pharmacies here are staffed by young women who have a pretty aggressive selling technique. After finding what I wanted they insisted on all of these other treatments I needed. It was difficult saying ‘no’. Grabbed my medicine and ran away…
angusmccoll 
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