The herb village is easily reachable by bicycle or you can sign up for a tour with one of the agencies operating around Hoi An. While some of the tours walk you through the fields and allow you to try your hand at cultivation the old-fashioned way, I think the best way to explore it is on your own. There are apparently entry ticket booths located around the herb village, which we could never find and we’re never mentioned. Instead, we decided to spend our money supporting those who live near by and work the land by eating at the Tra Que Water Wheel restaurant. It’s was one of our favorite experiences in Vietnam. The Tra Que Water Wheel offers cooking classes, farming tours and rice paper making classes, but they also offer simple, fresh and delectable meals. We dropped in for lunch, which was probably the best we had during all our Vietnam travels. Not only did we catch a great, incredibly fresh meal at a decent price, but the girls who work there go above and beyond in the service. They walked us through the fields and gave us a general tour – picking and passing along fresh herbs to taste, and they let us try out the old water wheel.
Tourists visitting Tra Que Village are often fascinated by watching the farming procedures of local farmers, including: raking the ground, sowing, watering, picking vegetables and many other activities which are rarely seen in modern daily life. Moreover, tourists can listen to people talking about organic farming techniques and try their hand at actual farming. The farmers don’t use chemical or fertilisers but a kind of algae found only in a lagoon in Tra Que. Thanks to this technique, Tra Que herbs and veggies are widely recognized for their quality, safety and especially outstanding taste and flavour.
The beautifully laid out gardens with mixed beds of vegetables and tiny flowers are also attractive enough for a bicycle tour around, prior to lunch at local friendly families with wonderful food of Hoi An such as: cao lau, Quang noddles, banh xeo, etc and some kinds of drinks extracted from local herbs.
Taking some cooking lessons provided by tourism companies isn’t a bad idea either. Just imagine that you can cook a Vietnamese food by yourselves and learn how food is grown in Vietnam: what an experience.
