The new house (below) is a long way from completion. The main roof is complete and the internal walls are in place. At time of writing the exterior wall are being rendered and a delivery of hardwood planking for the upstairs floor has been made. However, it's not comfortable to sleep in yet.
The main old timber house is very small and gets very hot after sun-up. Aom & I opted to sleep in the gazebo-style out building (see photos below). This is actually a lovely place to sleep and even eat; the family join us at the large table in front, al fresco.
At night we're encased under a large salmon-pink mosquito net with a big fan blowing; all snug and safe.
TOP: The gazebo-style out building which became our bedroom. A great place to sleep.
SECOND LEFT: Breakfast with the Khongjaidee family. Aom's 2 brothers are elsewhere.
SECOND RIGHT: Yours truly enjoying some roast fish and a Chang on his birthday. In the part completed new house.
THIRD LEFT: A snack on a very fresh coconut. Literally just off the tree.
THIRD RIGHT: No, it's not all mine. Just waiting for the rest to arrive for lunch.
BOTTOM LEFT: Yes, it's a rat. Yes I did eat some, and it tasted very good. These are not the rats one gets around garbage and in towns, these are found in the fields and are trapped regularly as part of the Thai balanced diet.
BOTTOM RIGHT: That was the temperature at around 1pm.
BELOW: Coconut preparation courtesy Master Chef Khemjira.
TOP LEFT: That's a 94-year old Great Grandmother on the back of the bike along with her daughter and grand daughter.
TOP RIGHT: Barbecued salted fish. Very, very tasty; and they're big fish.
SECOND LEFT: One of the motorised contraptions that are plentiful out in rural Thailand.
SECOND RIGHT: Bathtime in the jungle. Baby Jack enjoys his baths.
THIRD LEFT: Off for a walk around the farm with baby Jack in his back-pack.
THIRD RIGHT: A silvered brolly is a must when the tropical sun is biting.
FOURTH: This is the drilling rig that was used to make the new bore-hole for increased water supply; a bit of a contraption.
BOTTOM: This is the charcoal kiln. Charcoal is used extensively on the farm for cooking.
Here's two short movies of some classic Thai farm contraptions.
THURSDAY 5th: Another medical problem. This time it was Aom. Just before breakfast she came out with a yelp and hobbled out from under the mosquito net with afoot covered in blood. She’s caught one of her big toenails and virtually ripped it off. There was no option other than to remove the entire nail….. painfully!!
As soon as possible we biked down to the local clinic who cleaned and bandaged it. So that’s a bit of late-night dancing with fancy high-heels out for her for the foreseeable.
The rest of the day was uneventful. A trip down to one of the local stores for some choccy-ices and to buy a sack of ice to take back.
The crop of sugar cane had been ready for harvest for some time and the harvesters moved in and just after sunset the fields were ablaze* with flames at times soaring to 10-15 metres.
The harvesting of sugar cane is extremely arduous. Hired teams are brought in who undertake to entire business of firing, trimming, cutting, loading on to huge trucks and transport to the nearest processing plant; in this case 12kms away.
The reasons for the way they harvest the sugar cane crop is interesting.
First off the crop is fired in a controlled manner. This burns away the foliage making trimming down to the cane “stick” infinitely easier and just as importantly cheaper. The firing is done at night because rogue flames can be quickly seen and controlled.
After firing at sunset, by the following morning the crops are cool enough to commence trimming and cutting. Teams of workers do this and lay the cane stalks in neat bundles ready for loading onto the wagons.
The trimming and cutting people earn the vast sum of 2Baht for every 15 canes. That’s about 4p (GBP pence) per 15.
The workers live in small camps that are moved to whatever field is being harvested. Photos and a short movie show some of the process.
TOP LEFT: This shows one of the farm's sugar can fields just before burning.
TOP RIGHT: The same field ablaze after dark.
SECOND LEFT: The flames have reached the edge. The guy with a back sprayer sprays water onto areas which should not incinerate. Others leg around torching sections in a reasonably controlled manner.
SECOND RIGHT: At dawn workers move in to cut and trim the canes; canes still standing on the left and laid in rows on the right.
THIRD ROW: The rows of cane sugar ready for loading onto large wagons.
FOURTH LEFT: One of the cutters earning his 2Bhart/15 canes
FOURTH RIGHT: The cutter here has a metal stump for a leg. The canes aren't loaded onto that chug-chug truck; it's too small.
BOTTOM LEFT: The first load leaves the farm for the processing plant.
BOTTOM RIGHT: One of the larger loads en route to the plant.
Below is a movie of the Sugarcane harvesting process.
