For just 30 USD, a foreign tourist can spend one full day as a Vietnamese farmer. Wearing Vietnamese farmer clothes and conical hats, foreign tourists look like real farmers as they labor in wet rice fields and row a bamboo boat to catch fish in the river south of Hoi An. Tourists are given the necessary farm tools including ploughs, rakes and two buffaloes. Under the direction of a local tour guide, they wade into a muddy field and get down to work.

The tourists are taught to use the plough and rake with the help of a buffalo. After being pulled by the buffalo for a while, the tourists gradually learn how to get the buffalo to do his work. Despite muddy faces, the tourists seem excited about what they are doing. "We do the tour because we really want to experience Vietnam. We really want to get into them: the farmland and the people. And it seems fantastic. I was standing on an amazing mud right now. We did the plough with water buffaloes, did all the process of rice, saw how rice is produced, planted and ploughed all day. It is an amazing experience", said Sue Archibald from Toronto, Canada.

 

Though the look is exhausting, the tourists say they enjoy the tour. "My name is Naz, and I’m with Sue. We came from Canada. Coming to Vietnam has been the best thing I think I’ve taken. It has been a new experience. I have fed the buffaloes, pulled the horns. I was riding beside them, putting my hand in the mud to spread the baby seeds. I am doing everything that Sue is doing. It is opportunity for us to plant rice. I think you can hire us if you want to. So I love it. Thank you so much", said Naz Husain, from Canada.

Mr. Nhien, a farmer in Hoi An, who provides buffalos to tourists, says it’s fun to see foreign tourists working in the field. Local farmers always say “Dzo, Dzo” when they want the buffalo to stop, but a westerner holds the buffalo’s tail and says “Stop, Stop” and as a result, the buffalo runs quickly. In addition to working in the field, tourists also grind rice, cook, and enjoy local food.

 

Since it was first organized five years ago, this tour has been attracting more and more foreign tourists. "This tour is part of a program to develop Hoi An into a cultural tourism city. Through this tour, I hope to introduce Vietnamese wet rice cultivation and the local cultural identity. The tour is based on local farmers’ daily work - rice sowing, cultivating, and vegetable planting – to give foreign tourists a new experience", said Tran Van Khoa, Director of the Khoa Tran Hoi An Eco Tour Company. .

After a day of hard work and a lot of fun, foreign tourists know more about Vietnam’s wet rice civilization. Ms Barbara Mahony says she enjoyed this wonderful tour and found the Vietnamese people very friendly, and she intends to come back to harvest the rice when it ripens.

To Tuan