Photos: Narathiwat, Thailand
The house cat thought it was hilarious to bump into my fishing line and then shake his little bell (which happens to be the same year and model of my fishing bell- coincidence, I think not), thereby setting off a scrambling disturbance as I am shocked out of sleep, try to get out from underneath my mosquito net, put on my pants and long sleeve shirt at the same time, and try to clear the cobwebs out of my head so I remember why I am trying to get dressed in the middle of the night, finally stumbling out the door to the balcony where I stare at the rod tip for ten minutes (nothing happens of course), see the cat, give it a head rub and then go back to sleep. Not anymore though, stupid cat.
Fishing in the big blue off the jetty point. Big fat zero for anything decent. Just the normal little rock fish that the locals would love but are still babies to me.
My arch enemies. The top guy uses a net to encircle a big area then he drives inside the circle beating the hull of his boat and using a toilet plunger to make compression splashes to send the fish into his net. The second photo is of a man and his son who I respected the most as they would paddle along the rock lines of the river and using a short five foot section of line a tiny weight and a hook, catch a bunch of small fish. The little white styrofoam box held there live fresh shrimp which they used for bait (me jealous). There is the third type of fisherman who uses fish traps spread along the river. At one point I had a net run underneath the hotels balcony set by the construction guys next door who watch me fish all day, two rows of fish boxes, the guy doing circles out front, and the father and son team picking away at everything else. I just stood there not being able to cast as I couldn’t find any open water. I always took a big breath and reminded myself that they were fishing for food on the table and I was fishing for fun, then I would lob a couple of weights at them and hide out in my room.
Breakfast. Eggs, pork, rice, jelly donuts, and a fanta (always the green when served with meat.)
Lunch. Chicken, noodles, rice, fried veg, jelly donuts, and Fanta (remember red with chicken).
Dinner. BBq mackeral, crab curry, rice, corn on the cob, jelly cake, and Fanta (fish=green).
Banana pancake for dessert.
Cool fruit for snacking. Santa’s dingle berries I think they are called, in Thai at least.
I think I caught the missing link. Maybe a walking fish, breathes out of water, can talk, makes good soup.
More species caught. A sort of Drum?
More fishes. A pretty gold shine.
I caught a few of these nasty critters. I called them a snake fish as the first one I caught I was freaking when I saw it in the water. I remember putting it in a bucket and it freaking out lashing at the plastic buckets edges. The others I would whack with a big stick and it would lash out at the stick when I poked it to see if it was dead. The teeth on the thing is crazy. The lower jaw is lined with needle sharp teeth and the top has one row of teeth going straight down the middle. Freaky. I had caught this one which was huge and about a meter long. I beat on it a half dozen times until I thought it was dead. After my other experiences I just cut the line about three feet away from the head. Going downstairs to see which of the ladies wanted it (but secretly hoping one of them would come up and remove the scary thing from my balcony) I ran into the 17 year old girl that works in the cafe up front. I gestured to her if she wanted to see what I had caught as the people up front don’t really get a chance to see all the things that I have caught. We go upstairs and me thinking it would be hilarious to see this young girl freaking out over a scary snake fish. Nope. She saw it and went right over and tried picking it up by the line. I was kind of caught off guard and was kind of wanting to warn her but with the language barrier and the not wanting to look like a girly boy I just bit my lip. When she couldn’t lift it by just picking up the line, she wound the line around her hand until her hand was about six inches from its mouth. My mind actually stuttered as I couldn’t think of what to do except to just sort of do this little hand robot gestures and muttering ummmm, uhhhh, ummm, uhhhh. Then she was off like she was walking her poodle. I was fine with her taking it as she seemed like she just scored a jackpot. I followed her back out front where she went to look for the old man owner (80- years old). WHen we got outside the front door all of a sudden the thing came back to life and went crazy. It started flapping around, I almost fainted, and the girl just dropped it, waited a second for it to stop flopping and then picked it back up again the same way and headed down the street with another girl death snake fish dragging along the ground. That was first time in a long time that I was at a loss of anything. Hilarious after the fact though. Tough girl.
Not only did I have to deal with the cat, bats, and all bait stealing fish under six inches, this wasp kept coming around and ripping off chunks of my bait. It let me get close to take photos so I let it live.
Checking out the macro setting on the Nikon. Not as good as my Kodak. 4 inches was about as close as you could get for the focus to work.
The fresh water fish area. Most of the stuff I had caught.
The blue water stuff that I am a few kilometers shy of casting to.
I called this my bait area.
Muslim pastry maker.
One of the crappiest jobs being done by one of the unhappiest ladies. I passed by this stall everyday as it was kind of like a car accident (you know its bad but you can’t help looking). She has her permanent stall unlike all of the others as it has the little concrete catchment which is loaded up with squirming slimey catfish. She reaches over with her battle scarred bare hands (catfish have nasty pointers all over it and the slime burns like a mother on cuts and stabs). She slaps it on her tree trunk cutting board, smacks it with the side of her cleaver to stop the squirming and then proceeds to whack off the head (throwing it into the head bin) then whacking the body into chunks. That is her day/rest of her life. Not a happy looking camper. I did see her laughing and smiling when she was playing with someones little boy so she is able to seperate life from work. I would have taken a pass on that career day option.
The sweets ladies. Most of the stuff is too sweet for even my taste.
The flower shop. Every morning school kids come to by a flower for their teacher or supervisor. Not going to see that in America. I think we even gave up the old apple to the teacher bribe.
So thats a touch of Narithawat. Tight lines (thats fishing lingo for have a good day.) Yea- I have a problem.
Tags: Thailand
