Sawadee Khrap
On Saturday, Dec 22, I went to visit a friend of mine, Phum, and his family in Chom Thong. Chom Thong is southwest of Chiang Mai on the lower road to Mae Hong Song.
Phum has a fish-raising enterprise on the Ping River next to his home. The production cycle is 3 mo from fingerlings to sale – the fish are fed every hour as they grow – so this is a day and night job. Very intensive. Two years ago when the Ping River flooded, Phum lost his entire setup, fish, baskets and all – what you see now is only half of what it used to be, it was twice as wide. Oh ya – it extends the same amount to the left of the picture – but my panographic didn’t work.
(This is a very large image so be prepared for some time to download)
Here I met his Mother, Father and Nephews. This SlideShow shows the family, and a side trip we took to Ob Luang National Park and the amazing Ob Luang Canyon.
Here’s a great shot of Plum and the canyon.
I felt like I was back in California. Here I am on the other side of the world and I felt like I was back home. They have a camping area and a trail that we took and crossed the walking bridge over the canyon you see in the first image, past a prehistoric burial site and cave drawings. What a hike – and it was unusually hot – I sure got my workout.
From here we went to see the Wat Phra That Si Chom Thong Wora Wihan Temple in Hot (that’s the name of the city or village).
Impressive, I’ve made another SlideShow for this part of the trip. The sign tells the story, but I wish we would have had time to capture more images – what I got was just quick snaps and next time I will try to get more staged shots and panographics of the inside – really nice.
On the way back to Chiang Mai we stopped at another Wat (I don’t have the name at this time – it was only in Thai and I forgot to have Phum translate it for me – sorry) with a great view of Chom Thong Valley.
Just a quick post – hope you enjoyed. Comment me if you have any questions or would like to see more of this area.
Merry Christmas
Ciao
Comment by Michael
1 26. December 2007, 3:07 am o'clock |
Great to see the pictures Frank. It looks from the one picture the catfish would be really easy to catch!!! I do love them fried! Hope you had a nice holiday, it looks like you are having a great time traveling and seeing the sights.
You can’t eat these – protected at the Temple – I didn’t mention that, but I also really like catfish and these were some beauty’s – ha ha