We Were Up bright And Early For Our Mystery Tour To The Flower Show,

the slight problem was we only knew it was towards Chonburi, but after a few miles we saw this sign, so I took a picture of it and stopped at the first shop that I saw with a sign out side in Thai and English, it was a long way, the first shop keeper just shook his head, but on the second shop keeper said in remarkably good English carry on the way we were going and turn left at the forth set of lights, it is on that road about 10 kilometers along it, so that is what we did, the problem is that I knew that road once we were on it, after 3 kilometers we would be out to sea, so we asked again, and were told make a 'U' turn then turn towards Chonburi after a few miles turn left so we did, after a kilometer or so we stopped at a pharmacy and were told 1 kilometer and it is on the right, and sure enough there it was, it is in a place called Angsila, if you want to go there next year, just go along the Sukhumvit Road till about 5 kilometers from Chonburi, there is a set of traffic lights with a left hand filter lane easily spotted as it has a large Mercedes Benz dealership on the left of the lights, turn left 2 kilometers and it is on the right, so we parked the truck on the red/white lines as we did not want to walk to far in the sun,

the display in the car park was superb, especially when you think it is there for only the few days of the show,

inside the main hall are some of the winners from the show, I am not sure what this one is but the leaves looked pretty,

along the center there was an impressive display of orchids,

the plants were huge,

one of the individual flowers, I dread to think of how difficult it must have been to move these without breaking the stems,

there were about 10 or 12 of these huge pots,

some of the different colored flowers,

and now for something completely different, pitcher plants, these are carnivorous plants (but do not think of The Day Of The Triffids!),

they live in areas where there is no natural food in the soil,

so they have developed 'pitchers' that hold water, the edges of the cups are slippery,

so that some insects that alight there fall in,

and can not get out,

the plant then digests the helpless insect to absorb the nitrogen that is lacking in the soil, that way these plants can live in areas where other plants can not,

this particular one is quite large, about 8 or 9 inches long,

not only do they vary in length,

but also in color,

shape,

and texture,

I guess that these are all separate species, each one changing as to suit the local population of insects,

and some I have read have taken the trapping of insects one stage further, that they emit the smell of rotting carrion to encourage insects to them, a fascinating group of plants indeed,

I could almost not believe my eyes, a traveling live fish shop, just here for the few days of the show,

then on to the orchids that were for sale,

and beautiful they were to,

most like the ones above were in the 150 - 750 baht price range,

form memory this one was 500 but it only had a single flower,

there were also a couple of stalls selling these hanging type fern plants,

fruit trees were also in abundance, the latest varieties were here with pictures or if in season samples of the fruit,

I have seen many of the plants or I should say their flowers used as displays in hotel foyers, I did have some similar ones in my old house in the jungle around the fish pond,

and very different they looked to,

more types of fruit trees for sale,

if you have a piece of land or a large garden this is the place to go, just a shame it is only once a year, but I am sure there must be other shows like this, it is just a question of finding out where and when,

there were plenty of stones here as well for the rockery or just as a single feature,

although each stone had a number there was not a price list,

also there were some samples of rock funiture,

for the small feature they could be bought by the kilo, in this case 5 baht a kilo, but some of the piles were 8 baht,

then on to the banana section,

although I knew ther were 20 or more varieties of bananas it is not until you see them together you really realise how many shapes and coulours there are, some like these above are just so small I can not see how you could possibly peel them,

a close up of the 'toy' bananas,

below each example are some young plants, so if you see one variety you like you can take a young plant home with you, the growers keep more by their trucks,

this hand of bananas was quite popukar, judging by the few that are left, I guess you have to sample before you buy,

so different colors as well as shapes and sizes,

I really do not know why I was so surprised at the number of varieties, look at the number of different apples and pears that there are for instance,

on to another favorite of mine, the bamboos,

the strange thing is they are just different varieties of grasses,

most if not all of the ones I have seen here are native, but most come from China, if you are into bamboos there are some now coming on to the market in the UK from Tibet,

this fellow was huge, about 7" across,

there was also a row of these flowering almost cactus like plants,

we have got a couple of them at home, but the colors are no where near as bright as this one,

they almost look bonsai like,

there were a number of magnificent orchid displays doted around the show,

this one was outside of a large tent housing a display of tulips amongst other plants from Holland,

what made this display even more enjoyable was that it was air conditioned! yes the whole tent,

it appears that it is just to hot out here for them to grow,

me having a sit down and a cool off,

these are Cyclamen, from the Mediterranean, east to Iran and south to Somalia, which is strange as I would have thought that with a high temperatures there it would have been to hot as they prefer a cool temperature, 60 to 65 degrees during the day and 50 degrees at night,

they come in a variety of coulours,

then it was time to buy a few things that we had seen, first a sour dwarf orange tree, the one in our garden was so old and scragy it was time it went, so the first 120 baht was spent,

then this orchid it was priced at 200 baht on the pot but for some reason the owner said 180,

we then bought 3 small orchid plants to put in a empty pot at home 50 baht each

and then a bag full 3 for 100 baht,

I had the honour of carring most of the things, Diana had also bought a strange looking catus thing, it looked like one plant had been grafted on to another for 50 baht,

on the way back to the car we walked round to the far said of the show ground where there were more plants on display,

I have always liked this type of tree or plant but it is considered bad luck to have one on your properety,

which is a shame as the flowers look so nice,

it appears that they can be grown surrounding your property but not on it,

small and large flowers,

in lots of delicate shades,

pity they are such bad luck,

I was always confused about the difference between mangos and mangroves, as a kid I always thought they were the same thing, but above is a mangrove,

they grow in the tidal zone along some shore lines,

at the end of the row there were some more shops selling orchids,

and for thoese with fish ponds a nice display of water lilys for sale,

a orchid half way down this display caught my eye,

the coulours were so bright and unusual,

I have never seen one with type of coloration before,

also in the shop there was a nice display of the type of orchid that sends up a single flower stem,

in a previous post I mentioned the dangers that gnomes in the UK can place the population in,

well here are the Thai equivalents! I have to go now as our first guests have arrived so I will finish Fridays post tomorrow, oh by the way before anyone says anything about me parking on a red/white line the parking attendant said to park there!