Trip Report, Part 31: The Report Concluded (Finally)

Carved detail at the Sanctuary of Truth in Pattaya

When I realize how drawn out this trip report has been I almost feel an apology is due. Part 1 appeared back on May 7th of last year (Bangkok Bound), and finally ends today, just a bit shy of nine months since that first installment.

As mentioned back then I tend to glean something out of most other's trip reports, so hopefully mine will serve a purpose and you'll find some helpful tips/ideas/suggestions that you can refer to, too, even if not all of it applies to you, your travel plans or your own tastes.

The trip report covered my Thailand trip nearly a year ago, and we'd just gotten through a weekend trip into new territory for me, but I figure I'm going to call it there. I'm not entirely done with things from that trip, but the series has gone on long enough, it's getting dark and the floodlights annoy the neighbors so I'm calling it with this wrap-up; a summary, if you will.

The last portions had to do with a long weekend away I'd taken under the wing of an always gracious Thai friend who delights in sharing the "off the beaten path" places with me, and for that I'm always grateful. He has another junket planned for me for my next trip there this year, and I've given up on trying to guess where we'll go and what we'll see.  Since this is Thailand it's comforting to know that the unexpected can - and often does - pop up along the way and sometimes he's surprised, too.

Along the way in the series we covered a lot of ground, figuratively and literally. To save anyone scrolling back that far I hope you'll allow me to refer to some points along the way. The stories you'll reach by many of the links below often contain updates or further information, as well. You are, of course, free to click on the "Trip Reports" link in the right hand column and just plow through them, although since I was still in the kingdom another couple of weeks there may be other posts with that label after today. You've been warned.

Here are some of the things we covered during the 30+ part report:

• An updated installment on Duty free shopping at Taoyuan International Airport
• Transferring in Taipei and using airline lounges
• Arrivals in Bangkok, Immigration and ground transportation
• A visit to emergency at Bangkok Nursing Hospital
• Photos and a report about dinner at Sugar Hut Restaurant & Resort, Pattaya
• An accommodation report about Sunshine Vista Serviced Apartments, Pattaya
• Dinner at Sea Zone on Walking Street in Pattaya
• The tourist spot Million Years Stone Park in Pattaya
• Being a gracious guest and being fair to Thai friends
• A four part bit about the Sanctuary of Truth in Pattaya here, here, here and here
• A massage boy's story
• An updated reminder on staying healthy in hotels
• Mingling with the Pathumthani prison chain gang guys in Bangkok
• Another accommodation report about the Seashell Village Resort in Chanthaburi
• A grass-weaving area where some of your souvenirs may have originated
• Two posts about a night festival, raising funds for a new wat (here and here)
• My visit with a former bar boy at his "retirement home"
• Two posts about the large hillside temple Wat Khao Sukim (here and here)
• One post about pushing your comfort zones while traveling
• An observation about being a boorish tourist that I'm told one boor took offense to
• A short piece about Kuk Khi Kai, aka the "bird shit" prison in Chataburi
• Shrimp farming in Chantaburi
• Oyster farming in Chantaburi
• Visiting and walking along Laem Sing Beach
• Walking through Kung Krabaen Bay Nature Preserve and mangrove forest
• Two posts about the Lady Bars on Walking Street (here and here)
• ... and a look at the Tamnanpar Forest Restaurant and Resort on our way back to Bangkok after the long weekend away.

A friend said one time noted how I seem to return home more tired out than when I left on vacation, and they might be right.  This next time I'm hoping for more "down" time: more reading, more naps, more time in the shade beneath an umbrella.  We shall see.

Trip Report, Part 30: Tamnanpar Classic Forest Restaurant, Rayong

One of the waterways on the grounds of Tamnanpar

[This is part 30 of a series that looks like it might find its way to a proper conclusion, after all. It has to do with my latest trip to Thailand, and the people, places and things I encountered along the way. You can find the rest of the series by clicking here on Trip Reports.] 

All good things eventually come to an end, and my long weekend away in the care of a Thai friend was about over. In his enthusiasm to share places with me we had, as usual, overbooked our days, but it's not like I had big plans after returning; I've learned to book the time for these things with some slack built into the day or so after I return.

Main entrance (off of the car park) for Tamnanpar's restaurant

After an early check-out from the Seashell Village beach-side resort and the day trip out to visit the national park and waterfalls at Nam Tok Phliu we headed North to my friend's home (the older one, not the newer one still under renovation from Part 17) for the night.  By the way, if you're interested in the park you'll find more pictures of it in a post from the "Thai Smiles" series here.

Heading back after the waterfall stop it was getting to be later in the afternoon and I asked my friend what he'd like to do for dinner. "Since you liked Cabbages and Condoms and Sugar Hut I want you to see another one like those two. It's 'same same, but different!'" he laughed.  Both of the places above are in the general Pattaya area; owned by two brothers. Cabbages and Condoms I've yet to write about, but will soon. They also have a similarly nice location in Bangkok.

Where we were heading was a place called Tamnanpar (aka Classic Forest) Restaurant, about 15km from the center of Rayong. Built in a "natural" style, this place really appeared to be more garden than building, although the buildings are quite large. It can accommodate very large groups.

The grounds and gardens surrounding the restaurant area were expansive and meticulously groomed, as you'd expect in many Thailand garden areas. The buildings of the resort were made to look more like jungle tree houses, and the trees themselves were incorporated into the buildings that had more of a traditional structure... even the hong nams.

Two of a couple of dozen black swans in the water inside the resort area

Depending on which route you take - we stayed on Hiway 3/Sukhumvit both directions on our journey rather than cutting across Highway 332 - Tamnanpar is around 90km/56mi South of Pattaya; about 90 minutes by car. It seemed to cater more toward a Thai clientele.

An available light panorama of a dining room not being used that evening. My apologies for the 3 blurry hand-held images.

Prices at the restaurant were quite reasonable and they have a wide variety of what I was told was a more Chinese-Thai style of dishes, but there were some Western items, too. I suppose if they do group meetings and convention-style gatherings they'd almost have to, but the dishes we had were of a much better quality than your standard convention food.  There was a couple there providing easy listening style music; he sang and played a keyboard, she just sang.

Trees incorporated into the design of this men's room. You even had a view of an enclosed garden area from the urinals.

We didn't visit the spa part of the resort, but there is one. Rooms there run between $70 to $100 per night (per Agoda for April 2013), and are really quite nice inside; almost everything is finished wood. The gift shop is quite large, as well, but no great shakes except for the most new of newbies.

This terraced water feature doesn't show well in my available light picture, but it was all along one side of our dining room. Very relaxing.

They have a facebook page, if you want to check it out, and if you're in the area - or don't mind the drive - it's a really nice place to relax for an evening. Well recommended.

Map from the Tamnanpar website:
tamnanpar-rayong.com

Trip Report, Part 29: Oyster Farming In Chantaburi

A panoramic shot of a grouping of fishing homes near the waters of the Gulf of Thailand, taken from a bridge 

Raise your hand if you remember the last installment of my trip report about my visit to Thailand.  Hmmm... I didn't think so. The last installment was at the end of October last year, so it's been a couple of months.  I'd feel guilty about that but I did mention it may or may not ever find a proper conclusion, and it's a collection of stories and observations so it's not as if it's going to spoil, I suppose. Nevertheless, here's part 29 - the oyster farmers of the Chantaburi area.

The oysters grow mainly on the poles standing out of the water, but they're not fussy...

The Chantaburi area is home to nearly 1,000 oyster breeding farms; about half the number of the largest area, in Chonburi. Those figures are old, so those figures are undoubtedly larger now. There are over 6,000 in Thailand, mainly on the gulf areas, but also on the Andaman Sea side.

More detail of the growing area

You'll see groupings of them growing on square cement posts in more professional farms, but you'll also see many areas with them growing on bamboo posts (or anything else that stays still enough) where the river waters intermingle with that in the gulf of Thailand. They can produce around a ton per rai (.4 of an acre) per year, if it's done right; the average farm in this area being about 2 rai - just over 3/4 of an acre.

The oysters you're likely to see there are of the crassostrea (true oyster) genus, a part of the rhizophorae family, if I've been advised correctly. These are "eating" oysters, and not "pearl" oysters. The two most abundant types grown here are the crassostrea belcherie and the crassostrea commercialis.

Other nets rest above the farming areas

While I'd seen them growing naturally in areas of the slightly brackish waters of mangrove groupings they're abundantly harvested by fishing families in the open waters near Chantaburi. Any time you're heading over a bridge or happen to be near any water flowing to the gulf you'll see boat tie-ups and/or shacks and homes where the poles and nets are set into the bottom and the shellfish grow.

My guess is it's not easy work - not much of the fishing industry is - but it's honest work, and that's what counts, I suppose.  These pictures were taken in a couple of different spots as we rode around one afternoon.

Trip Report, Part 28: Student Blockade At Kung Krabaen

Uh-oh...The car was off in the distance, past this school group.

When we'd arrived at Kung Krabaen Nature Center the parking lots were nearly empty; it was only mid-morning, and we'd only seen a single group of school kids within the park itself as we took our time walking through it - as one should, I'd say. Figuring we'd exit from where we'd entered the park we'd parked in a small lot near the main entrance, pleasantly surprised at our good fortune to find such a convenient spot.

It wasn't quite as lucky as we'd thought.

The walkway where we came out of the park ended up being a short ways from the car, and the narrow bridge leading to the car was blocked by a student group seated on the ground, listening to one of their instructors giving them an introductory talk about the place.  When the group of folks in the top image passed by, the instructor stopped to wait for them as they walked in front of her. She stood, microphone in hand, and waited for them to go by, and then began speaking again.

"So, what do we do?" I asked my friend. "Let's wait and see if they get up and move," my friend replied "unless you want to interrupt them again."  Swell.  Had I understood a word she was saying it may well have been interesting, but I didn't.

We stood there for about 10 minutes as the students listened, took notes and occasionally glanced over at us. Finally my friend said "I guess we just do like that last group did."  I know enough people in the teaching profession that I felt sort of strange doing so, but we began to walk through the blockade, trying to be inconspicuous as we went between the students and their teacher.

I figured, though, as long as we were going to interrupt them anyway, why not have some fun with it, so I put my hand up to my mouth and began to "talk" silently as we walked along, facing the kids who were now watching us more intently than they were their teacher.  They erupted with giggles and laughter as they saw me mimicking the woman, and that earned me a look from her we in the West might call "shooting daggers".  

The talk went on after we passed, and we stood at the car and again waited, our path to drive out still filled with blue shirts.  At that point there was nothing else to do but wait, and wait we did, some in the group still glancing over at us and smiling at my prank. 

Almost 15 minutes later they got up and began filing past the entry sign, returning my waves and laughing among themselves about the farang who'd interrupted the lecture.

I motioned for some of them near the end of the parade to stop for a picture, and they (naturally) grouped together and posed. It probably belongs in one of the "Smiles" posts, but it fits with today's follow-up post, so here it is.

Trip Report, Part 27: Kung Krabaen Bay Nature Center

Mangrove trees (Sonneratia alba) from the walkway of Kung Krabaen forest

Along the Gulf of Thailand in Chanthaburi, Kung Krabaen Bay - also known as "Stingray Bay" to the locals because of its shape - is home to a huge area of mangrove forest: the Kung Krabaen Mangrove Forest and Nature Center.

A wooden bridge spans one of the open areas in the forest

While there are many many other mangrove swamp areas around the gulf, this park is, I'm told, about the largest and more visitor- and education-friendly of them all.  At a little over 500 acres (1,300 rai) it's difficult to get a big picture of it because it's so dense you can't see the forest for, well, for the trees.  Literally, in this case.

Over a mile of raised wooden walkways wind through the forest

It's like stepping back into prehistoric times when you enter the forest, if you you can forgive a little over a mile of raised wooden walkways that meander through the place. The open waterway in the lead photo today is one of a precious few I saw as I made my way through beneath the dense canopy of mangrove branches and leaves.

For height reference, here are
people climbing up to an
observation tower, above
the tree tops

The mangrove trees that dominate the area are classified as Sonneratia alba (of the family Sonneratiaceae). Their extensive root systems, both above and below ground, filter salt from the water, making the brackish mix of salt water from the gulf and fresh water from the rivers usable where it couldn't sustain many other varieties of plant life.

There was very little air movement in the forest, even though you could see movement in the tree tops high overhead, and I was lucky it wasn't a hot day; the humidity in the area might have been overwhelming otherwise.

Birds sang out with a variety of calls around me, and every so often you could catch a glimpse of wildlife - if you were taking your time and being observant.  Butterflies were visible near the edges of the forest, but I saw very few beneath the canopy itself.

What you could see were several varieties of small crabs, skittering over and around the tree roots. Most were in the three inch wide category; blues, greens and reds being their predominant colors.  The light under the trees was low enough that I got quite a few blurry pictures, but not many worth sharing here.  Here's one:

Another unexpected creature were the freshwater rays that rested on the surface of the mud in some of the shallow areas.  These two were either snuggling or mating; perhaps both.

The park is open from early morning to dusk most every day, and because of the educational value of the place it's a regular stop for school outings. It's not far from the area I stayed in the Laem Sing area for my long weekend holiday. On the map below the park is on the bay with the purple dot, and Laem Sing is indicated with a green one.

Image from Google Maps

Even if you don't make the five hour drive from Bangkok to visit here, try looking up other similar areas and check them out. I've seen photos posted by a friend of another park like this near Hua Hin. It's worth the effort.

A common tiger butterfly near the edge of the mangrove forest

Shrimp Farming In Chantaburi (Trip Report, Part 26)

Water is aerated in a small shrimp / prawn farm in Chantaburi

There are roads through the coastal areas of Chantaburi lined with large ponds that look a little like rice paddies, but there isn't any rice sticking up from the water. Instead, they're filled with shrimp - more black tiger prawns than other varieties. The water is aerated by axles extending out into the water, turning paddle wheels that agitate the water, sending a spray up into the air.

Detail of one of the aerating paddles

Shrimp farming is a big money maker for Thai farmers in the coastal areas of both the Gulf of Thailand and the lands bordering the Andaman sea.  We drove by hundreds of these shrimp or prawn farms in the Chantaburi area, and stopped to walk in and look at a few of them.

In the areas along the Andaman sea there are almost too many farms like these; large portions of mangrove groves have been demolished to make room for them, where crab, jellyfish and small fish previously thrived in the same brackish water now used for farming the shrimp and prawns.

Lines form a netting above many of the ponds that helps keep birds from diving in for an easy snack

In the 1980s Thai harvest nearly 90% of the shrimp directly from natural sources, such as the Guld of Thailand. Now some estimates say as much as half of the mangrove swamp areas along the Eastern and Southern coasts have been destroyed to create farms for them, due mainly to a rise in demand for the tasty crustaceans that exploded in the 1990s spurred by government subsidies, a demand from Japan and other countries and the rising prices that came along with it.

In an attempt to save some areas, notably near Trat, the government again subsidized the planting of sago and nipa palms, which would have normally thrived in the mangrove areas. Nipa leaves can also be a cash crop; easily woven into baskets and other items, and sago meal is a traditional part of the local's diet. Both allow the natural mangrove swamps to remain where nature intended them to be.

Some locals realized that by destroying the mangrove areas - and dumping pollutants from the ponds back out into the bay or ocean was causing an imbalance that effected them directly: less fish and crab for them to harvest for their own regular consumption.  

With luck, sense will win out over greed and the Thai will reach some happy compromise, allowing at least a partial restoration of the balance.

Trip Report, Part 25: Khuk Khi Kai

The road-side view of Khuk Khi Kai

While on a long weekend getaway this last trip I had the opportunity to stop and see Khuk Khi Kai, a remnant of the French-Thai unpleasantness at the end of the 19th century.

An internet image of Siamese mounted artillery in 1893

The Franco-Siamese War of 1893 was a conflict between the French Third Republic and what was then known as the Kingdom of Siam. The Thai naturally didn't care for the attempted occupation of Chantaburi, and some rebelled. As punishment, those who did were rounded up and put into the small (4.4 meters/14.4 feet across and 7 meters/23 feet high) brick building above.

If you don't already know, Thai culture believes the top of your head is the closest to heaven, and therefore the most "holy" part of the body, and your feet are the most base parts. It's common knowledge that you don't touch the top of peoples heads unless you've been given permission to do so, and that you don't point your feet at someone, step on them, or, indeed, even step over them. 

With that in mind, here's what made this holding facility most odious to the Thai: the French put a slatted roof on the building and kept chickens in a coop up there. The chickens would eat, scratch about as chickens will, and, naturally, poop - and their droppings would fall with no warning on the heads of the captives below. It wasn't a physical torture, per se, but one that was a great insult psychologically.

"Well, that was kind of a chickenshit thing to do," I commented while taking these images, and my friend blushed - he would rarely use such a crude term himself - but agreed. I had to push to get an answer as to how that would be said in Thai, and since I didn't take note of it I can't share it with you today. Probably just as well - there's plenty of that very behavior still going on today, anyway. Man's inhumanity to man, and all.

Being uncomfortable about the whole idea I declined to go inside myself, but you can bend down and enter a 3-foot high doorway, if you visit there.  It's history, but it's not history at its finest.  Still, an interesting stop.

The back side view, with the entrance door on the right

Trip Report, Part 25: Night Shots From The Festival

Three of the festival entrance, taken from across the road

What I call "night photography" - photos taken without a flash - is problematic enough on its own, since I rarely lug around a tripod and finding a steady spot to rest the camera is often catch-as-catch-can. To add to that, they're often more than a five second exposures and I just don't have the steady hand I had 40 years ago, and the aperture of my simple camera won't give me any more of a break than that.  

Maybe I'll invest in a better camera before the next trip, but the instruments I'd like to purchase often cost half of my round trip airfare there. Perhaps the camera fairies will leave a new one under my pillow, but that might entail leaving the old one underneath it before going to bed, and my sleep cycles are screwy enough to begin with.

That aside, a short while back I posted about this festival that was to raise funds to build a new temple (part 1 here and part 2 here). Those evenings I took night photos, and tried something new: stitching shots together into panoramas. Here are the results.

The "bouncy house" where kids of a wide age range jumped around

The dart throw carnival game

Part of the new temple building boundaries. Offerings were made by most, including myself.

I like the somewhat eerie light and coloring the camera catches. It's often a surprise when I get back to where I can download and view the pictures.

Hope you enjoy them, and your weekend.

Trip Report, Pt. 24A: Wat Khao Sukim 2

Some of the beautiful views at ground level

You can see long rows of
display cases behind this
Buddha image

In part one of this post yesterday you saw an overview of the grounds and buildings at Wat Khao Sukim, several hour's drive South from Pattaya.

My friend was driving me to a long weekend getaway in a coastal area of the Chantaburi province - an area probably best classified here as Laem Sing.

Wat Khao Sukim is a work in progress; a wat without much of an actual wat, if you will. The new construction (there's a model rendering of the temple to come at the top of yesterday's post) will double the amount of buildings that exist there now.

Today we'll try to wrap the post up with some of the photos I didn't have ready yesterday, showing more of the museum interior and the surrounding area.  Since it was approaching closing time I didn't see a couple of the floors of displays, but that just gives me more of a reason to stop there again in a few years and (hopefully) see more of the main temple finished.

A grouping of larger Buddha statues, adorned with silk flowers

There'd been an attempt to organize the countless offerings made to the temple - countless for me, anyway... let me know if you come up with anything like a total if you visit there - but they were grouped together, after a fashion.  Below is a panorama of some of the furniture that had been donated.

Smaller items - and I don't think it's an exaggeration to say thousands of them - stood in glass-walled cabinets, neatly arranged in rows and somewhat grouped by vintage, it seemed. Bowls, pottery, brass work and wooden carvings, both simple and intricate: all had a place.

Even pottery with some serious age to it was set in one spot. We'd speculated that they may have been found while doing excavations during construction of the new main temple. Here they look somewhat haphazard, but my guess is they would eventually find their way into the grand scheme of the place.

It was silent in the halls while we were looking around on one of the huge open floors of displays, so we were (luckily) able to hear the clattering of a gate and the sound of keys as a lock was closed. My friend called out to the guard and we hustled our way over to him to get out. A lovely place, but not somewhere I'd choose to spend the night.

We took the tram back down and stopped at one of a few places still open in the touristy area surrounding the parking lot. I got us each a fresh young coconut from a young girl who cut them open for us. After sitting on ice all day, they were cold and refreshing. I wish I could find them here stateside. We sipped on them through our straws as we left the parking lot and made our way back to Highway 3, and on to the resort.

A young man doing detail upkeep on the naga stair railing smiled for me - or because his work day was nearly finished, one or the other.

Trip Report, Pt. 24: Wat Khao Sukim

You won't see this building, as it's still under construction. You can see cranes above the site in the panorama below.

Wat Khao Sukim is a fairly large complex, built on a hillside in Chantaburi Province in the mid-1960s. It's still a work in progress, with an enormous temple underway (but just barely). Nevertheless, it's a stop worth making, if for no other reason than the nearly auditorium-sized main hall "museum" and the views from up near the retreat, one of which is below, taken from the wide patio encircling the museum.  From there you can see more of the 1,000+ acres of land owned by the followers of Phra Ajarn Somchai Thitawiriyo, who had originally intended it to be a meditation center.

A panorama shows part of the lake, the parking and shops, and the new temple - under construction on the far right

On the weekend it's likely to be crowded, and I base that on the size of the parking area at the bottom of this hill; you could put dozens of buses and still have space left for a couple of hundred cars.

From what I was told, lay groups and individuals of the faith can attend meditation stays, but it was fairly quiet on the afternoon we visited. The main buildings were set to close an hour after our arrival, so we didn't invest the time (or energy) to climb the hundred and fifty or so steps up the naga-lined stairway to the main hall, which I called the museum in the first paragraph.

Some of the museum, quarters and other buildings on the higher level

It houses thousands of items, large and small; all donations from people who are making merit in their own way, but all of no small significance.  These were items which all seemed to have some historical value, although the signage in English was sadly lacking.

A small fraction of the offerings on display

As an alternative to the stairway there's a tram that ferries you up and down the steep hillside, although since there were so few visitors that afternoon it was being loaded to the weight limit with building materials - bags of cement and sand that day, for the most part. A group of about 10 young men would load the cars up at the bottom and send them up to the top, where another group waited to unload the stuff and lug it off to wherever it was going.

The last bit of tram track and stairs near the top as we were descending at the end of our visit

The guys at the bottom were glad to see us, I think, because that meant they could take breaks between loads a little longer than usual. When the man with the walkie-talkie up top saw us approach the tram he called down to his partner and he spoke to the others, who all smiled with relief and sat down on the chairs to rest.

Break time... light 'em if you've got 'em

Seems like as good a point as any to take a break in the story, too. I'll finish the rest of it tomorrow.