The sun glistens on a sleepy sea on The Gulf of Thailand cockle beds
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We arose early in an (unsuccessful as always) attempt to beat the traffic out of Bangkok toward Phetchaburi. Later we would be going on round the Gulf through Cha'am down to Hua Hin to catch our breath after nine days of intensive touring cities, meeting friends, writing reviews, planning future events. Right now though our excitement was about the monkeys. We had read about these extraordinary creatures who inhabit the mangrove round the Gulf of Thailand. Somewhere along the line they have learned to swim, discovered a taste for soft-shell crab and adopted a semi-aquatic life. Now we were finally going to see them. I had promised some pictures to Laurel Robbins for her excellent website monkeysandmountains.com so I had to make sure to get some good action shots. It's funny though how the unexpected often turns out to be the highlight of the day.
If you had told me about the cockle fisherman I would have shrugged. We had lots of cockle-pickers back home in the UK. Heck, right on our doorstep on The Gower peninsula in Wales we had them. So, unprepared for a rare and humbling encounter, we chatted with our guide Gerry and Roger the driver (not their Thai names, it is typical of the courteous Thai people to adopt a Western working name for our sakes). Once we had alighted from the van at a village not too far from Khlong Khon, shaken hands with our smiling fisherman and clambered aboard his brightly painted boat we headed off down toward the mangrove to find our quarry. We were stunned by the natural beauty of the early morning in the mangrove and the quiet dignity of these simple, mostly uneducated people and touched by the precarious nature of their situation.
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We arose early in an (unsuccessful as always) attempt to beat the traffic out of Bangkok toward Phetchaburi. Later we would be going on round the Gulf through Cha'am down to Hua Hin to catch our breath after nine days of intensive touring cities, meeting friends, writing reviews, planning future events. Right now though our excitement was about the monkeys. We had read about these extraordinary creatures who inhabit the mangrove round the Gulf of Thailand. Somewhere along the line they have learned to swim, discovered a taste for soft-shell crab and adopted a semi-aquatic life. Now we were finally going to see them. I had promised some pictures to Laurel Robbins for her excellent website monkeysandmountains.com so I had to make sure to get some good action shots. It's funny though how the unexpected often turns out to be the highlight of the day.
If you had told me about the cockle fisherman I would have shrugged. We had lots of cockle-pickers back home in the UK. Heck, right on our doorstep on The Gower peninsula in Wales we had them. So, unprepared for a rare and humbling encounter, we chatted with our guide Gerry and Roger the driver (not their Thai names, it is typical of the courteous Thai people to adopt a Western working name for our sakes). Once we had alighted from the van at a village not too far from Khlong Khon, shaken hands with our smiling fisherman and clambered aboard his brightly painted boat we headed off down toward the mangrove to find our quarry. We were stunned by the natural beauty of the early morning in the mangrove and the quiet dignity of these simple, mostly uneducated people and touched by the precarious nature of their situation.
A heavily-laden cockle pickers' boat
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Gerry (like Charlie, another of Tong Tong's excellent guides) worked as interpreter passing on our questions and feeding us the explanations. He is a bright guy who is also very concerned for the environment. So, cockle fishing turns out to be a form of farming. It is not just a matter of filling a net with muddy shells and sieving out the best ones, hard though that is (I know, I gave it a try, it's back-breaking work, our fisherman had shoulders you could build a house on). Almost all the activity we saw that morning was a bunch of worried looking fishermen scouring their designated beds (delineated by wooden stakes impaled deep into the mud) to move their precious crop further away from the pollution recently making incursions from a new food-processing plant round the coast near Bangkok.
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Gerry (like Charlie, another of Tong Tong's excellent guides) worked as interpreter passing on our questions and feeding us the explanations. He is a bright guy who is also very concerned for the environment. So, cockle fishing turns out to be a form of farming. It is not just a matter of filling a net with muddy shells and sieving out the best ones, hard though that is (I know, I gave it a try, it's back-breaking work, our fisherman had shoulders you could build a house on). Almost all the activity we saw that morning was a bunch of worried looking fishermen scouring their designated beds (delineated by wooden stakes impaled deep into the mud) to move their precious crop further away from the pollution recently making incursions from a new food-processing plant round the coast near Bangkok.
A traditionally built cockle-picker's night house
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The growth cycle is about 18 months to two years long and the farmers seed and re-seed their cockles in much the same way a nurseryman thins out seedlings. Still the size varies hugely and only the biggest go to market. They load their boats as heavily as they can and head back to the shared depot where the catch is riddled and then the smaller shells are taken back and re-seeded. This cycle is repeated endlessly. It's incredible how high they can pile the cockles. On a calm day the water is almost up to the gunnels. Then off they putter, very slowly so as not to sink their precious boat and cargo. Many of the out-board motors on the boats here are off-the-shelf and bear the trademark of Honda. The older guys though still disport enormous engines salvaged from pick-up trucks and converted by the addition of a prop-shaft to the crank. Unladen, these things move like a WW2 Motor Torpedo Boat!
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The growth cycle is about 18 months to two years long and the farmers seed and re-seed their cockles in much the same way a nurseryman thins out seedlings. Still the size varies hugely and only the biggest go to market. They load their boats as heavily as they can and head back to the shared depot where the catch is riddled and then the smaller shells are taken back and re-seeded. This cycle is repeated endlessly. It's incredible how high they can pile the cockles. On a calm day the water is almost up to the gunnels. Then off they putter, very slowly so as not to sink their precious boat and cargo. Many of the out-board motors on the boats here are off-the-shelf and bear the trademark of Honda. The older guys though still disport enormous engines salvaged from pick-up trucks and converted by the addition of a prop-shaft to the crank. Unladen, these things move like a WW2 Motor Torpedo Boat!
There's other fish to catch - this old-timer proudly showed us his catfish, though he explained sheepishly he was out looking for anchovy but only caught 3
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Sadly, it's the middle men who take most of the profit from this trade, the guys with the trucks who take the shellfish up to markets in Bangkok. The fishermen are lucky to get 20Baht (30 cents) per kilo, the shippers get treble that. Recently our village's fishermen have been talking about forming a cooperative to try to control the price but they know the power of the traders. With the prospect of diminishing crop yields due to pollution and little commercial clout, some are giving up. Our guide pointed out one very happy fisherman who sold most of his plots to build an ugly mini-hotel in the middle of the bay. He is turning to tourism. Tourists are rich by local standards and leave nice juicy tips. It's a much easier way to make a living and it showed, his broad shoulders had moved about two feet south to inhabit his waistline! Who can blame him. but with increasing tourist incursions to see the crab-eating macaques in the mangrove and diminishing husbandry, I fear this unique and beautiful sight may disappear quickly. I felt sad and not a little guilty as one of those who had come to gawp at the monkeys, only to contribute to the decline of the way of life of these honourable men and their families. Then I felt envious. What must it be like to do hard physical work in such a beautiful setting. Virtually every day is the same, it really wouldn't matter what day it is. Life is governed by the rhythm of the tides and the weather.
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Sadly, it's the middle men who take most of the profit from this trade, the guys with the trucks who take the shellfish up to markets in Bangkok. The fishermen are lucky to get 20Baht (30 cents) per kilo, the shippers get treble that. Recently our village's fishermen have been talking about forming a cooperative to try to control the price but they know the power of the traders. With the prospect of diminishing crop yields due to pollution and little commercial clout, some are giving up. Our guide pointed out one very happy fisherman who sold most of his plots to build an ugly mini-hotel in the middle of the bay. He is turning to tourism. Tourists are rich by local standards and leave nice juicy tips. It's a much easier way to make a living and it showed, his broad shoulders had moved about two feet south to inhabit his waistline! Who can blame him. but with increasing tourist incursions to see the crab-eating macaques in the mangrove and diminishing husbandry, I fear this unique and beautiful sight may disappear quickly. I felt sad and not a little guilty as one of those who had come to gawp at the monkeys, only to contribute to the decline of the way of life of these honourable men and their families. Then I felt envious. What must it be like to do hard physical work in such a beautiful setting. Virtually every day is the same, it really wouldn't matter what day it is. Life is governed by the rhythm of the tides and the weather.
Ironically, the fishermen revere the monkeys. There is a sacred shrine, on stilts of course. Every morning, fishermen place offerings of food there for the monkeys in much the same way as Thais leave gifts for the monks at temples all across the country. Oh, and we did see the monkeys and it was worth it. As you will see from the slide show, they are an absolute riot.