Green: Riding Bikes in the Viet Nam Countryside (Weekly Photo Challenge)

1. Oops! Did you forget? You have less than 12 hours to enter to win a special hardcover edition of Stardust. signed by Neil Gaiman!!

2. The two things that came to my mind worked perfectly for this week’s photo challenge on the word “green.” I thought of “green” as in environmentalism and “green” as in the lush foliage of Viet Nam. The pairing immediately reminded me of the bike ride we took through the countryside on our morning to go “work” in the farm and rice paddy as part of our GoPhilanthropic adventure with the Global Village Foundation.

These photos are a taste of that experience (I will save the rice paddy photos for another day), along with a video to entertain you of a baby water buffalo galloping across a field, and of me attempting to use Vietnamese watering cans at the Global Village Farm. (Unfortunately, there is never a need for a village idiot when Traveling MarLa is around to entertain.) 😉

Happy Over-the-Hump Day, Friends!

Love, Marla

Leaving Hoi An for the Global Village Foundation farm.

Water buffalo in a field near Hoi An, Vietnam

Our path for riding bicycles to the Global Village Foundation farm. This section was through shrimp farms on either side.

A female Vietnamese worker tending a farm in central Vietnam

Charity

Our tour was through GoPhilanthropic, who coordinated with such nonprofit organizations as Global Village Foundation, who arranged this day for us to visit and “work” at a farm and rice field. We couldn’t hang. We couldn’t even come close.

A working farm in central Vietnam

Grass is put under the plantings to give ongoing fertilizer to the soil as it decomposes. Here Travel Writing students from Chatham University learn about Vietnamese farming techniques

Planting at a farm in central Vietnam. It was too hot for us westerners to handle for very long.

Travel Writing students working on the farm.

Traveling MarLa attempting to water plants. I may as well have peed my pants again, for all the water I got on them. (Um, “again” refers to the encounter with the squat toilet spiders.)