Sunday before last we took a motorbike ride south of HCM to Long An Province to experience a rice harvest. In 7 hours they harvested, threshed and bagged 4,000 Kgs of unhusked grain almost exclusively by hand. The ancient looking threshing machine was carried in by hand and assembled on site. As a great example of co-operation, a neighbour herded his flock of ducks into the freshly harvested fields to clean up grubs and snails and be fattened in the process. It was good to get out of the city and be in the countryside again and not bad to enjoy a homemade chau ga (chicken rice soup) for lunch either.