Day 23

Today Jason and I drove to a few farms about 2.5 hours to the south of Nanning to Hepu. This city is located about 10 miles from the South China Sea and about 75 miles from the Vietnam border. The first farm we went to was quite an adventure. We traveled down the first gravel road I have been on this trip and it was rough to say the least. Then we crossed a river on foot and switched to a different car. From there we continued for about 5 miles. When we arrived, we walked through disinfectant misters and washed the car off. They are trying to eradicate PRRS from the farm. The employees live on the site year round in the provided dorms and receive meals. It is all families here. They are allowed to plant what they want in the surrounding ground. I saw several different plants drying off on all of the rooftops and cement pads. They grow several crops I have not seen before. They have peanuts, banana trees, pomegranate, and several others. The facilities are quite old but they are kept very clean. They were nearly done with the depopulation and disinfecting. Since doing so they have had a huge improvement in production numbers. They actually export live hogs to Hong Kong. For supper we ate at a local restaurant. It was seafood. This provided some new food experiences once again. The food here was mostly salty so it was right up my alley on taste and was all pretty good. Some of the firsts consisted of squid, which was not too bad it had a mushy texture but was eatable. I also had many different types of whole fish. We had fish soup, which had small fish in it. These were dark in color and very soft. I also had fried fish. They were about the size of a sunny and had a very salty flavor; this was one of my favorites. I also had whole shrimp. You eat the entire thing legs, antennas and all. This was not the battered shrimp we have in the states. There was also another fish soup with chunks of a larger fish in it. This was also good. The only problem with the food was trying to avoid all of the small fish bones. I really enjoyed today, as I was able to see an older facility that was still working well and was being updated as much as possible from pen gestation to gestation crates, forced cold air and drippers for the sows.