For The Second Day Running,

we are off early, 

 so once again straight on with the post, I have split the post into 2 parts, as usual I took way to many pictures, so if you want to see more of the trip when you scroll to the bottom of the page just hit the 'older posts' button, we are going up to visit Juu in his home town, I am not sure of the way but we went past a huge statue of a three headed elephant,

 evidently it is good luck to make a wish as you go past it,

 this is the bridge we are going to cross,

 these other ones are in the distance,

 looking up river,

 towards Bangkok,

 after a couple of hours we arrived,

 there are fish ponds everywhere,

 this tree was a first for me,

just one fruit looking like a large green raspberry,

 then out with the fishing tackle, we were joined by Brian and Sa who travelled up with us,

 we had a quick trial run with the first rod in the pool nearest us,

 Diana took a self portrait of herself,

 then tackle up the second rod,

 this is the pool we are going to fish in,

 also with us was Goung in the pink shirt and one of his brothers,

 Diana strikes the pose,

 one of the nice things I like about being up here is the stands of bamboo like this one,

 the stems are yellow with a green stripe,

 the green is so intense the first time I looked at this specie of bamboo I thought that some one had used a magic marker to put the green colour on the yellow stem!

 whilst we were fishing, or I should say cutting down various trees and bamboos we kept getting tangled in the girls went to sit in one of the other pool side rooms for a coffee,

 and bought a huge bag of ice coffee, all of that for just 12 baht,

 back to the fishing, I had enough of catching the trees so I change tactics,

 we had been using artificial lures, but I changed to using bread bait, and was soon into the fish,

 it was small to say the least, but it must have a bigger relation in the pool,

 another cast,

 another fish,

 it was putting up a fight,

 if not the same fish then its twin brother!

 incidentally, if you ever go to a freshwater pond over here, well most places in Asia and the tropics you may see these pink things stuck to plants and other objects out of water,

 they are in fact eggs,

from a snail called an apple snail, (Ampullaria), the eggs are laid out of water unlike the common pond snail in for instance the UK which lays its eggs underwater in a jelly like lump,

 then it was Brian's turn to try his luck,

 in no time at all another small fish fell to the bread bait,

 next a much larger fish for me,

 seeing that Diana had to have a try,

 meanwhile the some of the family using other rod were slowly making their mark on the vegetation being cut down to retrieve wayward lures,

 luckily I had brought lots of lures with me,

 next it was Sa's turn to try her luck at fishing,

 meanwhile another tree went for a burton as another lure failed to hit the water,

 then it was Sa's turn for a fish,

 another small one, but she was so happy,

 Diana came over to see how we were doing,

 a picture that Diana took of both of us holding the camera at arms length,

the fish then went off the feed, so we decided to liven things up a bit, now this is not a good combination, me, beer and a gun, (naturally legally owned by a Thai national) the thing is it was so appallingly loud I had to use my beer finger to keep the noise down, which meant that with one hand to aim with the safest place to be was standing in front of the target!

 

then the fish came back on the feed with another one for Sa,

then I hooked something a little larger,

well it looked a lot larger,

 

we even needed the net to bring it in,

easy does it,

and there he is,

let him calm down a bit,

 

carefully unhook him using forceps,

a quick picture, then back he went,

it was now time for us to leave, but first a relaxing beer or three,

 

whilst surping a beer I noticed this tree, I was told it was 100 years old,

it was the fruits that intrigued me,

 

they looked large and round almost like a coconut with the outer shell peeled off,

 

growing nearby a jack fruit tree,

 

in a few months time these will be delicious,

 

I also spotted this stand of bamboo,

 

one of the biggest stands of Buddha bamboo I have seen,

so called because of the shape of the stem, then it was time to make our move, so off we go back to Pattaya, but we did make a stop on the way home, so hit the 'older posts' button if you want to see where we stopped.