Surprise Day Trip to a Garden

Today we ventured out on a little trip to Beam's brother's garden. like many other trips, we had no idea what was in store for us.

First, I must tell you about her brothers. I surmise that her father must have accumulated some local fame and wealth through hard work. He seems to have "set up" his sons into nice homes and businesses. Two distribute water, beer and maybe some whiskey. Another owns a gas station and also inherited his father's home. Father certainly instilled wonderful values into the sons because they are VERY nice, thoughtful and generous, not only to us but their workers. (I think much more than the normal businessman from the tales Beam tells us).

So we drove to the Malaysian border for a typical "Chinese breakfast" (a meat soup with rice) and on to his garden. We anticipated a smallish plot of land where some local fruits would be grown for the family and possibly excess for sale. We drove about 2 miles back through a rubber plantation where we found his "garden." It turned out to be a 100 acres plantation with some mature trees that were tapped every day already, and younger trees that will be ready in two years. He explained that he put in the road (plus two bridges) shouldering all the cost himself (upwards of $30-50,000). He also allows anyone to use it and it does save all his neighboring owners a lot of mileage and time (further showing his kindness and generosity). He built worker homes for 6 families which are far, far nicer than any we saw thus far (see photos below). As he walked, you could clearly tell he was a naturalist, justifiably proud of his land. He carefully card for a few trees as he passed, stripping off vines that would one day choke the tree) and paused now and then to appreciate the surroundings.

We hiked up to the top and were rewarded with a spectacular view of the area, although were totally drenched from the effort when we got back down to the truck.

We then drove to his other garden which WAS the fruit garden. There he has Mangosteen (an amazingly sweet, delicious fruit), bananas, Longkong and a few others. He arranged for his neighbor to pick them and sell them in Sadao and he shares the profit. Many people have gardens like this here, in fact his brothers also have at least one more....so fruit is plentiful at this home.

On the way home we stopped at a roadside shop for noodles. All of a sudden the owner is taking us through her house, the restaurant tables out back, and into a building. There we see family members feverishly working, spreading out a "puffed rice" dessert on a large pan/topped table.

Come to find out, this is another business she does. She purchased a rice "popper" which pops 4 cups of rice into "puffed rice. A huge wok like pan, holding a syrup mixture, is heated over a wood fire and the rice stirred into it, then spread out and flattened into the large table/pan which we saw being done when we entered. We also saw students packaging "squares" into plastic bags of varying sizes. They do this every day, and they take it across the Malaysian border where it is sold. As it turns out, they are the supplier to the Malaysian outfit which purchases each package for about 30 cents, then adds some more flavoring on top of the rice cakes, repackages them and resells them for about $1.75. True to the kindness of the people, she wouldn't let us leave until she gave us 4 packages (delicious!)

We capped off a perfect day by driving back to his gas station (where he and his wife work almost every day for 12 hours) for some refreshments (coconut juice from a freshly lopped off coconut with a straw for the ladies and a beer for me.) I get a feeling these unexpected adventures will just keep on coming.

Next: Cooking lessons tonight, and a tour of the mayor's Rubber factory on Monday.