The Farm

Last weekend Huyen and I visited her Grandfather. On our way to his house we picked up the other member of our carpool -- Huyen's nephew Viet Hoang. For some reason Viet Hoang likes my driving style and asked to ride with me and Huyen. By asked, I mean he just climbed on to my bike. Despite having lived in Vietnam for over a year, driving around a three year old still makes me really nervous. Huyen insisted though that it is safer for him to drive with two of us than just with his mother. I succumbed to Vietnam logic and let Viet Hoang ride with me. Basically how it works is that he is sandwiched between Huyen and I as I drive. I must be a good driver because after just a few minutes Viet Hoang was passed out and slept the whole ride.

Eventually we got to the ceramic village where I bought some souvenirs for my family. When we were leaving Viet Hoang climbed on to the front of my bike. I told Huyen that it definitely wasn't safe for Viet Hoang to ride there but she said -- and this is my favorite quote of the month and maybe year -- "It is okay. Viet Hoang wants to ride there." I said, "He's three. We're supposed to make those decisions!" Huyen and her sister laughed and then climbed on to our bikes. And yeah, I let him ride in front:

(PICTURE: Viet Hoang riding shotgun)


(PICTURE: This is the type of ride I'm comfortable giving little kids.)


After our visit to Huyen's grandfather's house, Huyen's sister invited me to her farm. Yes, her farm. Apparently Huyen's brother-in-law, much to the chagrin of Huyen's sister, bought a duck and pig farm a few miles from their house. I'm not exactly sure what he was doing before this but he put all his eggs so to speak into this farm basket. Personally, I love farms so this was really exciting for me to visit. Here's some pictures:

(PICTURE: Huyen'brother-in-law's duck and pig farm)



(PICTURE: Me and the pigs)



(PICTURE: Huyen in front of the neighbor's rice farm)



Ironically after leaving the farm, we stopped at a local market and bought some BBQ-ed duck. Apparently the 5,000 ducks on Huyen's brother's farm weren't ready to eat.