My Pic of the Day last week traced the way to Pensri's family farm. It takes about 15 minutes to walk but we usually cycle out there. That wasn't something Pensri could do as a young girl. The old narrow paths have been gradually broadened and hardened, first so that a motorbike could be ridden along them, and now they are wide enough for a small truck or a tak-tak to drive most of the way there. The broken down bridge wasn't there in the old days, but there was water in the stream-bed beneath it. Pensri used to cross on a narrow, bendy plank. As you can see, the bridge, which has only been there about two years, is in need of serious repair. I'm not sure who is responsible for doing that, but it is probably the municipality. Work was started some six months ago, but it had been left off and was still unfinished when we left Phana last month.
We go out there to sit in the shade and quiet of the little hut you can see in the sixth photo, next to the big tree. It is a mango tree and has a variety of mango which ripens some time before the ones we have in our garden.
The farm is worked by two young women who are probably about third cousins of Pensri. The farm is actually owned now by the children of one of Pensri's sisters, but two of them are in Bangkok and the other in Lamphun. The third cousins always bring a sack of rice round to our house when we are in Phana. And when any of Pensri's other sisters come up from Bangkok they always go home with more sacks. The farm has been very productive in the last few years so the cousins are farming it well. They also have a farm of their own so they clearly work hard.
The klong (canal) in the first picture is just behind our house, although our land doesn't border it. The house next door has land that stretches behind ours. Our next-door neighbour is a third cousin, too, I think, though from a different branch of the family. When Pensri was a small girl and the family went ot to work on the farm, the water they drank came from the pond you can see in the last picture. It is really muddy and has a few fish (and at least one snake) in it and I certainly wouldn't want to drink it. But they all survived, perhaps more by luck than anything.
Click on the photos to get an enlarged view.
Lawrence a nice little insight into rural life. Despite the hardship I would imagine Pensri enjoyed it, muddy water and all!
Posted by: Mike | 03 May 2010 at 08:16 AM
And those eucalyptus trees wouldn't have been there in Pensri's young days. Eucalyptus poles have replaced bamboo in building construction in many places.
Posted by: Michael Hare | 03 May 2010 at 08:33 AM
Mike and Michael,
Thanks to you both for your comments. More to come about Pensri's younger days, I think, so we will see how much she enjoyed it (or otherwise). Michael has got me thinking more about the 20th century history of Phana.
Posted by: Lawrence | 08 May 2010 at 10:39 PM