Talkin' Shit About A Pretty Sunset

This week I toured an orange grove by boat in northern Thailand. That's right, by boat. This is apparently a common way to harvest oranges here.

The farmer digs massive trenches between the rows of orange trees, then fills them with a few feet of water. During the dry season, he mans a boat similar to this, except the watering boats have a massive gasoline engine mounted in the center with a twelve-inch-thick pump that sucks the water from the surface straight through pipes onto the leaves. The farmer is the guy in the blue shirt, just coming back from his afternoon crop inspection. No good leaving the kids behind; just stick an umbrella over them and off we go!

Here are some workers coming back from spraying pesticide on the trees. We've got a long way to go before we can convince citrus farmers to go organic:



We had to see the details, so we piled in with five people:



And me, shoved in the back, lying low:



Not the most seaworthy vessel:



The boats are propelled by bamboo pole:



Ahhh ... lush, green oranges. Yes, green oranges:



I have to keep pinching myself as a reminder that this is my job. Just think, less than a month ago I was clacking away on a computer eight hours a day, five days a week, and hating every minute of it ...