It's the long clothes lines drying in the wind that alert you to the fact that you are entering Amish country. "Every day is laundry day for the Amish women," says Jim, our driver and guide. "Every day except Sunday."
While staying with friends in Pennsylvania last month, I wanted to visit the super-fertile farmland of Lancaster County, about an hour west of Philadelphia. It is the place where this breakaway religious sect first settled after fleeing persecution in 18 e century Europe, and still contains America's largest group of 367,000 Amish.
Their belief in simple living, simple clothing and Christian pacifism also shuns modern technology. Most households have no telephone, internet, TV or washing machine. In fact, there is no electricity grid at all - hence the obvious washing lines.
Like many people, I first became aware of this particular branch of so-called "Pennsylvania Dutch" (actually a corruption of Deutsch - in other words, German) thanks to a movie shot forty years ago this summer. In 1984, Hollywood came to Lancaster County in the form of Peter Weir's thriller Witness.
Harrison Ford played John Book, a big city cop assigned to protect a young Amish boy who witnessed a murder while visiting Philadelphia. Book was seduced not only by the Amish lifestyle, but also by the boy's mother, played by Kelly McGillis.
I recently rewatched the film and it's still as good as I remembered - if somewhat idealized (those lovely wooden sheds we think of as communally built have largely been replaced by metal and fiberglass structures). To assimilate, Harrison Ford's agent had to wear the trademark Amish pants held up by suspenders (belts are considered flashy), a jacket, and a wide-brimmed straw hat. The women wear ankle-length dresses that cover their shoulders and upper arms, along with bonnets (black for unmarried women and girls, white for women).
Just as distinctive as their clothing are their horse-drawn buggies; the Amish are forbidden to drive cars. And there were a gratifying number of buggies clattering along the side roads around the neighboring towns of Bird in Hand and Intercourse (yes, really, and my teenage daughter inevitably photographed the road sign to entertain her friends at home).
I saw two companies offering tourist rides in Amish buggies, but instead we opted for a 90-minute minibus excursion organized by The Amish Experience, a reputable company based in Bird in Hand. As he strolled along the country roads at a speed slightly faster than the buggies, Jim kept up a steady stream of facts and figures.
For example, we learned that all non-Amish, regardless of nationality, are known as 'English'; and that even in death they eschew ostentation - their gravestones are small and identical. However, we had to postpone a planned visit to an Amish cemetery because a funeral was in progress. Several buggies were lined up outside, a poignant sight that may have been from 200 years ago.
Jim pointed out the 'phone shanties', upright garden sheds that looked like outdoor toilets, but actually house a telephone used to conduct business with the 'English' (phones are not allowed in the house itself). Then there were the tractors with metal wheels - and therefore too uncomfortable to drive further than the farmyard. Horse-drawn implements are still widely used in the fields.
We also passed several one-room schools, where children under the age of 14 (when formal education ends) could be seen through open doorways - little hooded heads turning to answer our curiosity as we stumbled past. Outside of these small schools, push scooters are thrown away; bicycles are banned because they can encourage long-distance travel.
Amish women often marry at age 21 and go on to have an average of seven children - while, of course, doing all the washing of their clothes. Most tend to use the kind of tub-style wringer rings that would have been common in 1940s homes.
Such domestic work could appeal to the minority attracted by the current 'tradwife' subculture, with its vision of women as housewives. But a broader fascination with the simple, communal Amish ways seems to stem from concerns about our high-tech, consumer society and the isolation felt from living through our phones and increasingly atomized, individualistic lifestyles.
To understand the people behind the traditions, The Amish Experience offers an immersive, three-hour VIP (Visit-in-Person) tour, including a visit to an Amish home (visitors are asked to dress modestly), and the is also possible to stay at Amish-run bed and breakfast inns. Expect a hearty fried breakfast: the Amish like to fuel up before a hard morning's work.
If our minibus ride could be seen as somewhat unsavory - a kind of 'Amish safari' - the objects of our curiosity seemed long accustomed to ignoring onlookers. Tourists are asked not to shove their cameras in people's faces, as glorifying one's outward appearance through photography (besides being inherently rude) is a fundamental Amish no-no.
When I asked Jim how the Amish feel about the tourists, he told me about a fellow tour guide who was invited to an Amish wedding - the only "English" among about 500 guests. Feeling self-conscious, he was eventually approached by a church elder who asked him, "Well, how does it feel to be stared at?"
Essentials
British Airways (ba.com) flies twice daily to Philadelphia from London Heathrow from £560 return. Several trains run daily from Philadelphia to Lancaster (1 hour), with round-trip tickets starting at $21.
Greystone Manor Victorian Inn, in Bird in Hand, is a lavishly furnished 19th century farmhouse offering double rooms from £127 per night. More than 30 Amish-run bed and breakfast farms are also available through amishfarmstay.com.
The Amish Experience Visit-in-Person tours depart daily from April through October and cost $61.95 per adult (over 13) and $51.95 per child (ages 6-12).
