This weekend i found myself upcountry in the northeast of Thailand in a small village community about 50 km out from Udon Thani city. A friend of my invited me to visit his parents farm in Udon Thani which is about 480 km's from Bangkok city just over a 7 hour drive to reach his village.
At this time of the year is rice planting season in Thailand and this is want , i was looking forward to seeing , i love rice eat it all the time with my Thai meals but now was the time to see how this little tasty white grain was cultivated.
Upon reaching the village that early morning after driving during over night we found his parents and some village people already in the fields planting the baby rice shoots just looking at them moving along the rice paddy fields planting one baby rice shoot after another was looking like a real back breaking job these people were obviously use to doing this definitely not a job for the faith hearted in that heat and in that position for most of the day definitely not a job i would like to be doing.
These farmers are almost ankle deep in watery mud soil it is all done manually by hand each rice baby shoot is driven into the muddy soil , rice needs a lot of water in there growing process the water would be pumped from there farm dams into the rice fields.
The actual rice baby shoots are grow in a couple small fields of the farm then when they have reached to a certain height they are plucked out of the ground bundle up and re-planted around the rice paddy farm. The most remarkable thing i learned was the whole village helps each other in planting the rice they go from one field to another till it's all done then they sit back for a couple months till it's all ready to be harvest and the back breaking job starts again but cutting the rice plants down.
My friends parents don't only relay on growing and selling rice on there 20 acres of farm land they also grow a few varieties of mangoes for extra into which are sold at the markets by them.
Thailand has about 60 varieties of mangoes from sweet , sweet and sour or just plane sour all used in different ways depending in what recipes they choose to make at the time.
They also grow some herbs mainly for there own use but the lemongrass is grown more in a quantity as this is always a good seller at the markets.
Banana trees well you find them everywhere in Thailand they are a must on any farm in Thailand just handy to have a banana a day in your diet.
Mushrooms are another vastly used vegetable in Thailand you will find them in most dishes that are cooked in Thailand and the good thing about these mushrooms they just pop up around the fields nearly all year round and they are free to pick been on your property like these ones i spotted on his parents farm and they certainly made a great spicy mushroom soup that night.
This was one amazing Jackfruit tree i had never seen a Jackfruit tree with fruit on it and these were massive weighting at least 15 - 20 kgs each and were ready for picking to be taken to the markets.
Fresh water dam fish my God never seen so many fish in one dam they were for personal use and to sell to the village people and some sent of to the fish markets.
And then we have the Papaya fruit again the Thai's can not go without this fruit used in many of there Thai spicy salads or eaten fresh when ripe.
I was really overwhelmed in what i had learned and seen on my friends farm as far as there life style goes they are hard workers but certainly live a healthy life style with what i saw having all those fresh fruits and veggies at there disposal and clean fresh air they breath everyday.
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