Here I am! I arrived in the beautiful Yen bai province – pics to follow – after a 6 hour all in journey from hanoi departing around midday and arriving in the evening. Where is here? Well i have no idea. Luckily i am being guided by some trusty VNUA students who claim to know the way. Bus change speeds here are incredibly fast, so fast that i almost lost my baggage!
After successfully departing the bus, I was left standing outside some house, was this the farmers house – I wondered? This question was answered for me when several motorcycles showed up and informed us they were to be our transport to the farmers house. This being my first experience on a motorbike, I wondered how on earth they would transport the fairly large suitcase i had brought with. Their faces upon bearing its weight did not fill me with hope. Their ushered assurances neither. However we undertook the journey and i became increasingly skeptical as the initially good road gave way to a rocky dirt track that became perilously steep.
Finally we arrived to the farmer and the reception was warm and courteous. We met them all and then were transported again to our residence for the night, a local guesthouse.
The next day we had a more well rounded introduction as our VNUA supervisor team came and we all had a bid dinner together, before the real field work began the next day.
Field work consisted of taking air samples, soil samples, and measuring rice growth, we learned the ropes and set sail and over the next week would collect all the samples we need to return to VNUA and begin lab experiments.