La-un (pronounced La-Oon), 50 kilometres northeast of Ranong and halfway down the peninsula to Malaysia, is a region of dramatic beauty and great topographical variety. In this hidden corner of the South, you can embark on an eco-adventure to discover the primal roots of Thailand, learning how to forage and fend amidst an abundance of natural resources. Follow the evolution of food production from over 2,000 years ago, from hunting-gathering, to traditional to modern, environmentally-sound methods.
As the boat cruises into an estuary, the villager scans the shore, seeking stretches that the tide has recently exposed. Crunching into a sand bar, he leaps out and begins digging with his fingers, like a badger seeking prey. We join him, unsure what it is we seek.
Feeling a bit like we are digging for potatoes, our gritty fingers eventually bump into hard ovular stones. What we excavate are glistening mussels resembling beautiful, polished agates. Within a half hour, we have a basketful, enough for a tasty dinner back in the village where everything will come from the shore or the forest.
Long before they dwelt in concrete houses or glass towers, even before they cultivated rice, Thais were hunters and gatherers. In the low-lying marshes, they had little difficulty in filling their stomachs, dining each evening in stilt houses perched high above the incoming tide.
In the next few days, we will dig for hoi fai mai clams, use flashlights to surprise fat frogs in mid-croak, snare fish, trap shrimp and gather a variety of vegetables from the edges of the La-un River. We will cook our finds on the riverbank using utensils cut from the rainforest. It is like taking a giant step backwards into a simpler era of subsistence existence.
Topography and Crops
Along the coastline of an inlet that empties into the Andaman Sea opposite Myanmar (Burma), are tidal marshes that provide the seafood vital to the La-un diet. Just inland are tall hills and deep valleys covered in thick vegetation irrigated to lushness by eight months of rain and mist.
This contrasting landscape can best be observed from Khao Klong, a 365-metre tall hill with a commanding view of the valleys that embrace the seven tambon (sub-districts) and 33 mooban (wards) that are home to the immense diversity of La-un. To the west, we can see the estuary where the traveller begins his food hunt.
A day’s tour is a catch-it-and-cook-it excursion that is as tasty as it is fun. In the morning, we hunt the La-un River’s green waters at Wang Plaa (Fish Palace) for delicious tilapia.
Along the upper reaches of the La-un River, villagers have laid leafy tree branches in the shallow water at the edge of the river. This artificial island provides fat, five-centimetre shrimp with a false sense of security. Three days later, we remove the branches, shaking them vigorously to create a shrimp hailstorm on the stony beach.
Traps baited with small fish are placed in a mangrove at low tide. At the next low tide 12 hours later, we check them for puu dam (black crab), a particularly tasty variety. Medium-sized crabs, the most common, bring the trapper around 80 baht per kilogramme. A villager with 70 lop (traps) can make between 300 and 500 baht each day and still have enough crabs left over for the family dinner.
Kingfishers with orange feathers and bills perched in the trees running along the shore watch on as we scrabble for hoi fai mai clams. The tide has fallen late in the afternoon today, and we can hear a choir of birds and see flocks of egrets winging low over the water. As dusk falls, crickets sing and the occasional gecko announces its presence. As daylight dims further, fireflies flit through the branches, an idyllic setting for a primitive pastime.
In the evening, we join the villagers in catching bullfrogs. The amphibians lurk in the leaf-shaded waters along the shore. Although they resist blinding by a flashlight, they will sit still long enough to be pinned to the ground by a glaum, a forked stick specially-designed for the purpose. The frog puffs up when caught, making it look much weightier than its 200 grams.
Then the fun begins. Our host lays the catch out along the riverbank. He then cuts 50 centimetre-long leaves from the shore shrubbery and washes them in the river. Onto them he drops two handfuls of raw rice, and then folds the leaf edges into thirds to create a packet. He stuffs twelve of these packets into a fat kabong (bamboo tube) freshly cut from the forest. After pouring in two bottles of water, he stands the tubes upright in a fire he has started.
Vegetables we have collected in the forest are placed in another tube, along with the shrimp, clams and fish plus kapi (fish paste) and salt. This is placed in the fire, savouring the delicious aroma as the packet cooks. When the packet leaves turn yellow, it is ready to eat — a tasty meal produced entirely from the surrounding countryside.
This is only a sample of the initial phase of agricultural evolution in Thailand. Elsewhere in the village, farmers have transformed the land into orchards planted in coffee. Thais generally drink arabica but here robusta is the preferred variety, the output being shipped to Middle Eastern buyers. We also tour rubber plantations, rice fields, coconut and areca palm orchards and rows of mulberry trees nurturing silkworms.
We also visit Suan Samunprai, a herbal garden, following Mr Kham around to discover the characteristics and uses of more than 70 varieties of herbs. The medicinal herbs are not grown for profit but for use by the community — a bit of local philanthropy.
New Age Farming
Despite its distance from the main centres of agriculture, La-un has become a magnet for farmers interested in alternative techniques for growing food. Until three years ago, Mr Boonlert Phansawi, 67, was a typical farmer. Inspired by His Majesty King Bhumibol Adulyadej’s call to adopt Setthakit Paw Piaeng (Sufficiency Economy) strategies, the innovative 67-year-old embarked on a new way of growing crops.
Essentially a recycling and integrated farming process, the technique utilizes the waste products of one process as the raw materials for another. Boonlert also employs natural fertilizers and pesticides to eliminate the need for chemicals on his coffee, durian, longan and mangkut (mangosteen) trees. A stroll around the farm provides a fascinating introduction to local technology at work. We follow him around his property to discover these imaginative but effective techniques:
The villagers developed an organic pesticide two years ago after commercial pesticides became too expensive and because they poisoned the soil. The natural pesticide is made from coffee and/or longan wood burned in kilns.
The region offers elephants, caves, treks to waterfalls, bamboo rafting, and the rare raffalesia that exudes a putrid odour to lure flies to pollinate its flowers.
Perhaps the oddest find is a ward called Moo Baan Isaan (Northeastern Village) but which its inhabitants know as Buriram. In 1982, a group of disaffected villagers in the northeastern Thai province of Buriram decided that the soil was no longer fertile and the rainfall too low to support them. In a bold move, they headed 700 kilometres southeast to Ranong’s deep valleys. Liking what they saw, they abandoned their former village and in 1985 bought land in La-un.
This courageous move required completely uprooting their families and realigning their lives with the realities of La-un. They came from flat land; La-un’s boasts dramatic scenery with deep valleys and tall peaks. Their former home was dry; La-un enjoys eight months of mist and rain a year — ample irrigation for their crops. They were flatland rice farmers; in La-un they had to adopt a completely new approach to farming, planting coffee and fruit orchards in the hillsides. Initially, the land they sought to till was covered in rainforest and roamed by wild elephants. For years, they lived in bamboo houses. Electricity didn’t arrive until 2005. But they persisted.
Twenty-five years later, they have successfully integrated themselves into the local culture… but on their own terms. Step into the village and be transported to Thailand’s Northeast. They eat sticky rice and laab (minced meat); moh lam, a distinctive type of narrative music, wafts through the village. The village now holds 98 houses sheltering 333 people, virtually all of them from Isan, and all of them Buddhist.
Visitors to southern Thailand with no opportunity to travel to the Northeast can find everything here. Bird watching is especially popular among visitors because so many varieties inhabit the thick forest. There are homestays and hikes, a fresh market, and the villagers can arrange a cultural performance in an instant because they are continually playing musical instruments and singing.
In short, La-un spans the chronologic and geographic spectrum of Thailand. One can time-travel on a fascinating journey exploring the evolution of agriculture and experience the Northeast without setting a foot farther north.
This is adventure travel at its best. English-speakers are in short supply so it is necessary to visit with a Thai-speaking guide from any reputable travel agency. Take your own drinking water. The comfort level of the homestays is very basic. You are here to experience life as the villagers live it, and to explore the abundant natural beauty of the area.
Homestays can be found in Baan Noen Thong, Pha Ping, Baan Tub Neua, Buriram, and in northern La-un. A one-hour bamboo rafting journey along the La-un River costs 100 baht per person.
It rains for eight months (May to December). The hot season runs from January to April when temperatures can reach 37 degrees celsius. Take an umbrella or a raincoat.
Contact information: Thai Ecotourism and Adventure Travel Association (TEATA)
Web site: www.teata.or.th
ABOUT THE AUTHOR Steve Van Beek's special intimacy with water comes in large part because for 11 of his 30 years in Thailand, he lived in a wooden Thai house set on stilts in the Chao Phraya River. He has also paddled a small boat down all of the Chao Phraya's four tributaries; his "The Chao Phya, River in Transition" which was published by Oxford University Press is considered the definitive work on the river and water culture in Thailand. His most recent book, "Slithering South" is an anecdotal chronicle of his first journey. The author of 21 books and 42 documentary films on a variety of Asian cultural topics, he is a Fellow of the Explorers Club in New York, elected in recognition of his solo river expeditions in China and Tibet.
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