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I went to Rayong’s Suphattraland-a huge plantation where different kinds of Thai fruit is grown. This was a few months ago, before I changed jobs- I went with my grade 4s on their school trip.

From Bangsaen, it took around two hours to get to the fruit farm and once there we had to wait for one of the Thai teachers to get our entry tickets. We didn’t pay because we were on a school trip but the cost is 300 baht for Thais and 400 baht for foreigners, but that includes fruit tasting and papaya salad for lunch.

On arrival you get a free drink of iced durian juice which is pleasantly refreshing. Then everyone piles onto the tour bus, which holds about 30 people, and it takes you through the plantation so you can see all the different fruits being grown. It stops briefly for you to taste the rambuttan which have been plucked from the nearby trees.

The tour bus continues to a large area where you can taste a few more different varieties of fruit-like mango, pineapple, dragon fruit, jack fruit and durian. All these fruits, as well as many more, are grown on the plantation. It was the first time I have tasted durian and I liked it. It is a large fruit with a sharp spiky skin and it smells of rotting flesh. But if you can ignore the smell you will be pleasantly surprised with the taste. It is very sweet and has a slightly strange velvety texture. It was quite delicious.

We had lunch at a little restaurant in the middle of the plantation and then went to look at the honey farm, where they breed their own honey bees. There are products that you can buy at over inflated prices. Royal Jelly, which is apparently very good for you, was a little out of my price range at 2500 baht (46 GBP). So I bought a bottle of honey instead but I am sure I could have got the same thing in the supermarket for half the price.

I liked the visit there, it’s interesting for me to learn about new stuff, and there were plenty of tour buses arriving so the place is a popular tourist attraction.

If you have a spare afternoon, and are located in that area, or if you just want something different to do, Suphattraland is located at Ban Khai in Rayong province and is open every day of the week, 6.30am to 6.00pm.

some good advice 😉

Mount Lavinia- Sri Lanka……entry into the weekly photo challenge

A few years ago two of my friends, Trudy and Jamie, came to Thailand for a holiday. I went to meet them in Bangkok for a couple of days. What follows is their take on the strange, yet wonderful things that they came across.

 

1. Tailless cats. They are everywhere in Thailand. The reason is not that the cats have broken their tails at some point, as most people may think, but more probably due to mutation and crossbreeding. Or as my friends proffered, “they may have had an electric shock, from the electricity wires”.

 

 

2. Strange people on boat piers. On a boat trip along Bangkok’s canals, we happened to share our boat with a strange dude. He was on his own, nothing wrong with that, but he sat next to me on the boat, and proceeded to talk, and talk, and talk. It was nice to chat, at first, but he felt the need to speak to us, about everything! Don’t you know it’s sometimes nice to just shut up and enjoy the surroundings.

 

 

3. Mini Floating Market. On the canal, lurking in wait is a lady in a boat who wants to sell you stuff. Bread (for the catfish), souvenirs, and beer (at highly inflated prices). She always asks if the boat driver wants a beer. I am sure they are working together.

 

 

 

4. Canal Trip. One piece of advice from my friends- don’t do the canal trip after a few beers.

It’s not exactly settling to the stomach.

 

 

 

 

 

5. Post Boxes. As part of the canal trip, you get to see some traditional Thai houses, and the people who live there. Some of the houses are nothing more than wooden shacks, and one thing that Jamie was more than bemused about was that some of these shacks had post boxes.

 

6. Waving Cats. Called Maneki-neko, these little figurines are thought to bring good luck to their owners.

Trudy took an instant dislike to these cats as she thought them a little freaky.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

7. Kamikaze Lizards. Cute little animals that are seen everywhere, but tend to dart away if you get too close. However, as Jamie experienced, one such lizard decided to throw itself in Jamie’s general direction, landing on his shoulder.

 

 

 

 

8. Tesco Lotus. I mean who would expect to find Tesco all the way over in Thailand; Boots, Ikea, and Marks & Spencer. Yep they are all here.

 

 

9. 7 11. A handy little corner shop in case you can’t be bothered going to the larger supermarkets. You can choose from any of the five located in the same area.

 

 

10. Vitamin B. Another piece of helpful advice; Vitamin B helps with mosquito bites. The little buggers don’t like it apparently.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

11. Food. The food, oh the food. Two firm favourites of my friends- chicken with cashew nuts, and the curries. I don’t think they were bothered which curry. All of them!

 

 

 

 

 

 

12. RBV. For those not in the know- Red Bull Vodka. For some reason, if you say Vodka & Red Bull, when ordering, the Thais don’t get that; you have to order Red Bull Vodka. In a bucket preferably.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

13. No Health and Safety. My friends witnessed some guys several floors up, on the outside of the building, cleaning windows, with no safety harnesses. T.I.T. after all!

 

 

 

 

 

14. Taxi Metres. After a little advice from me, my friends always asked for the metre to be used when taking taxis. If the driver says no, get out and get in a different one.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

15. Tuk-Tuk Drivers. Don’t believe them when they say the Grand Palace is closed. It is never closed. My friends didn’t believe them, and enjoyed a nice day out.

 

 

 

 

 

16. Deserted Islands. Apparently, when on a boat trip, you shouldn’t fall asleep on a deserted island. I am not sure whether this was Trudy or Jamie, or both of them!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

17. Patpong. Be very careful if your curiosity gets the better of you, and you go into one of the many ping pong shows in Patpong. My friends got taken down a dark alleyway into the club, where they bought one drink. Five minutes later they were presented with a bill for 9000 baht. Bangkok can be expensive, but not that bloody expensive. They had watched a couple of shows- all manner of things being shot out over the audience (you will have to use your imagination for that bit). They challenged the bar staff, to which the woman replied “you have seen show, you pay”! They paid 2000 baht and quickly left. So be very, very careful if you find yourself in the same sort of situation. Suffice to say they didn’t leave a tip.

 

 

18. Football Playing Elephants. On a lighter note, elephants can play football. And Jamie decided he was going to be the goalkeeper. After trying to save the first ball, and suddenly being in pain, he let the elephants win.

 

 

 

 

My friends left Bangkok and spent the rest of their holiday on Koh Samui. They thoroughly enjoyed the time they spent in Thailand. They are planning on coming again later this year. I cannot wait to see them, to get more insight into their thoughts.

 

For this week’s challenge, share with us your own take on zigging and zagging. It can be a winding path, the Herringbone pattern on your coat, a scar: any jagged line that tells a story- Daily Post Photo Challenge

One Sunday afternoon I needed to get out of my apartment to get some fresh air, and in order to keep myself out of the local drinking establishment, I took myself to Koh Loi, in Sriracha.

I didn’t even know it existed until I came across it by accident when I was doing some online research. So I hopped on an orange songthaew, after checking with the driver, who confirmed that the songthaew waiting was indeed bound for Sriracha.
The journey from Bangsaen to Sriracha took less than 30 minutes- it’s 12 km away, so not far at all. The songthaew stopped opposite Paradise Park, Sriracha’s biggest mall. I could see a few tuk-tuk drivers waiting, so I got off and hailed one down.
Koh Loi is connected to the mainland by a bridge, so I asked the tuk-tuk driver to drop me this side so I could walk. He didn’t understand and pointed to the island, so I said to him in my pigeon Thai “durm, sanook”, which means drink for fun. I meant to say “dern sanook”-walk for fun. I wondered why he was giving me funny looks; poor guy must have thought I was propositioning him.
The island is located by Sriracha’s pier and it is perhaps Thailand’s smallest island. In fact it took me longer to get there than how long it took to walk around. It was busy with Thai’s, visiting for the day, and me, the only foreigner.

The first thing I saw was a huge pool with sea turtles. All sizes from small to very large. Interesting to see them but the water doesn’t look particularly clean, and am sure the pool will not be large enough to house the number of turtles there. But I read that, in the past, some of the turtles were released into the wild, so maybe they are doing some good conservation work. I hope so anyway.

Then continuing to walk around I climbed up stairs to the small temple at the top of the hill, where there were a number of people making offerings, and enjoying the views. I stood admiring the view myself before walking down the other side of the hill.

 

There I saw the Kwan Yin Shrine at Wat Koh Loi. This temple is hard to miss. It has traditional Chinese decoration- brightly coloured reds, greens and yellows and ornate dragons on every column.

Just by the side of the temple is an area where you can sit and relax-have a picnic, chat to friends, or simply sit and take in the surrounding area. From here you get great views of Koh Si Chang, another island off the coast of Sriracha. This would be an ideal spot to enjoy the sunset in the evenings.

On the opposite side of the island, as you walk back towards the bridge, there is a market selling food and souvenirs, and a lovely little garden area.

Although the island is small, it will take you all of twenty minutes to walk around and see everything, it is a lovely little place and so easy to get to. Go see for yourself.

Sometimes life is an up
Sometimes life is a down
But what you gonna do?
Will you smile or will you frown?

If you frown then you feel bad
And everything around seems bad
But if you smile, although it may take a while
Then you will see that you are free
To do things that others can only wish for
And smiling makes it seem alright

You have one life so make it count
Don’t sit and wonder of how things could be and doubt
If you want something bad enough
Whatever that may be
Reach out, Chase your dreams
Be whatever you want
You see…..

Dreaming big along with positivity goes a long way
Don’t let others get in your way
Don’t be scared to go your own path
And maybe one day…..??

Risk things- the worse that can happen is they don’t work out
So what? At least you have tried

Every person has life’s share of up’s and down’s
And it’s every person’s decision
Whether they smile or frown
Make the right decision 😉

Here are some photographs of the beach at Bangsaen 😉

A little editing to make the TWIST! 😉