Monday, March 8, 2010

SURATTHANI

Our day started by taking a small motor boat through a mangrove jungle, about 1/2 hour outside of Suratthani. It was like entering another world as the boat worked its way through a labyrinth of small creeks and inlets. I only hoped that the boatman knew where he was going, as it would have been easy to become hopelessly lost. (Since I am posting this, you know that we made it out safely.)

We passed dense forests of mangroves and tree-sized ferns. We saw largle flocks of herons and many, many species that a couldn't identify. Fish jumped out of the water around the boat, seemingly laughing at us since, of course, we had no fishing rods. It was truly a beautiful experience in an untamed jungle.

From the mangrove jungle we went to a shrimp farming operation - huge ponds where laborers wade in up to their shoulders, hauling in nets, channeling the entrappd shrimp into narrower and narrower enclosures, until they are dumped into large buckets. They are then iced down to slow down their thrashing and taken to trucks for marketing. Amazingly, each day the farm that we visited manually hauled in 5,000 pounds of shrimp per day.

Some of the shrimp that were too small to market profitably were dried in the sun for two hours, then mashed into a paste that the Thais consider a condiment -- although none of us tasted it. We did, however, get to drink coconut milk from freshly cut coconuts -- cool and refreshing.

Fittingly enough, our next stop took us to a "school" where monkeys are trained to climb tall palm trees and pick the coconuts. The process was quite interesting, with young monkeys being taught to spin coconuts that are tied to low branches until the stem breaks. Gradually, the heights is increased and after several weeks of training the monkeys learn to climb to the tops of palm trees that are 50 to 60 feet high and perform the same procedure. A trained monket can pick as many as 500 coconuts every day, approximately five times as much as a man.

Although the monkeys were not mistreated, they are kept on leashes throughout the training and might even be considered by some as a form of "slave labor." The entire concept left the team feeling slightly uncomfortable. It definiterly would not be condoned by PETA.

After dinner at the Home Stay the team was taken on a walk (in the dark, using flashlights) to a spot on the banks of the jungle where we watched thousands of fireflies as they lit up trees and bushes as if in a giant Christmas display.

Back at the Home Stay we were treated to a remarkable exhibit of Thai dancing by a group of local school children, accompanied by a "band" of mainly percussion instruments that were enthusiastically banged. The Thai girls then asked our team to join them in the dancing and Jennifer, a former dancer, wowed everyone with not only her grace, but also her incredible dexterity.