Terraced Rice Fields

I have a vivid memory of sitting in elementary school and looking at pictures of terraced rice patties in my social studies book. I remember thinking how cool they looked and how amazing it was that the farmers had transformed entire mountainsides into usable farm land. It seemed like an awful lot of work.

I remember sitting in that classroom over thirty years ago, getting lost in that picture, and thinking to myself that it would really be cool to go see those terraced rice patties one day.

That day came last week. Nate and I did a two-day trek through the hills of Northern Vietnam. We hiked across from them, uphill from them, downhill from them, and next to them. We even tromped through several of them which entailed walking across the top of the narrow clay walls that make up the patties.

As awe-inspiring as the pictures were in my social studies book, the rice patties of Northern Vietnam are even more impressive in person. Standing on a hillside and looking to your left and to your right and seeing an entire valley covered in the free-flowing organic shapes of the bright green rice fields is breath-taking.

-Jack