I was down in Nakhon Si Thammarat earlier this week, wandering around one of the country’s holiest wats, Wat Mahathat, when my facebook alert chimed in my pocket. I stepped outside of the temple and discreetly looked at the message. My friend Baimohn asked what I was up to in two days. I wrote back, saying I was in the South of Thailand just traveling around. I asked “why? what do you have in mind”. He proceeded to type back a message that he and some friends were going up to a rice farm, and would I be interested in joining?

I booked my plane flight home for the next morning on the taxi ride back to my guesthouse. Getting to learn about rice harvesting directly from the source trumped any desire to hunt for the best rice dish in southern Thailand. Eating khao yam nam budu (a specialty rice…