Planting Padi - Tanjung Karang

Spent a lovely day experiencing padi planting with close friends and family.

The girls hard at work planting, while the boy chickened out because of the mud. The girls went in barefooted. Ooh yeah... ;)

Planting her hair in as well? A you can imagine, later I had to clean mud out of her clothes AND hair! :)

She just enjoyed doing the rows, and loved the muddy feeling on her feet. She described the feeling as "soft, cooling and lovely." :) 

 This is Lela's husband who's a farmer. He was very patient and showed the girls how padi planting is done.

While planting the girls came across snail's eggs

Here they're doing Jiggly dances to avoid stepping on padi and to avoid from falling...they had several near falls when feet got stuck in mud. :)  

Norlela Showed us this machine which plants baby padi plants. Definitely easier and less back breaking then using hands. The plants are filled in the "rack" on the right and is planted as the machine move and rotates.

She also showed us a different machine which is carried on the back of the farmer. Seeds are filled into this machine and then strewn onto dry land. The land has to be dry or the seeds will not grow.

Norlela again, our very fantastic wonderful guide showed the children this cotton tree too and gave the girls some as souvenirs. :)

Well after a hot hot day in the sun, we visited her village house, which is really huge and beautiful! The kids went wild here running from end to end with friends.

Then we were treated to a really scrumptious lunch!! This is just half the dishes she served us. THere' more! Yummy. :)  All in all, we really enjoyed our  trip with Norlela. Her family, her dad are just wonderful hosts, and we will definitely visit her again. :)

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After all that, we left Tanjung Karang and headed towards Sekinchan in search of the "Rice Bowl" of Selangor. First a stop over at the seaside.

We met this fisherman, and believe it or not, that's his hand made boat!!! He fishes from morn till noon in that tiny little thing!! I asked him if it ever toppled and he said "Never" and brought out his oar to show me, as well as posed for a shot. :)

This tree house was absolutely tempting and we ended up sitting in hammocks while the kids had great fun swinging on these DIY swings, made of plastic chairs, leg removed. Cool. :)

Here 2 mamas go check out if the fisherman will sell his fish and crabs. Well, they found out that he only sells  to restaurants.

And to complete our field trip, we headed to the padi/rice factory in Sekinchan. Kids saw how the rice is sieved at various levels, and how husks are collected for chicken feed, fuel and fish pellets while broken, polished rice particles are collected for making noodles.

And the final stage...collecting...

Glorious RICE!