We did some shopping in the market to get some food for dinner and then he drove us back to his mothers house. He works with Sak for a month and then on his rubber plantation/with his mother for another month, then its back to Ko Phangan and Sak's ice factory. I had been to his mothers house before, about 7 years before. I forgot how far it was from the port, probably because I was living on the ferry boat in the dry dock at the time and the dry dock was half way there.... I met his mother again, stuffed up my Thai greetings and wais.... then A showed me around. He is currently farming white snapper and some other fish Thai's love which he doesn't know the English name for. We also checked his crab nets, but the crabs were a little on the small side A released then into his dams so he could catch them again when they get a little bigger.
Shopping in Surat Thani
at the petrol station
Once it was dark I had a 'shower' - read buckets of cold water..... then we cooked dinner, or more precisely A cooked while I watched. A's mother and brother had eaten earlier so it was just the two of us for dinner. It was all lovely food, but A was a little disappointed, his panang wasn't all that hot and he knows how I like it.
The next day I woke up at 6:30 am - strange after only going to sleep at 5:30am the day before - everyone else in the house was already up. A's mother had gone to visit one of his cousins, so A and I had to look after her shop in the morning. There weren't many customers so we closed it up at 9am and A took me on a boat trip around Surat Thani. Surat Thani is the Venice or Amsterdam of Thailand. It was amazing, the canals kept splitting, I'm glad I didn't have to find my way back.
Monks on their way to the temple
the corner shop that comes to you
I liked the shrine at the front of this floating farm
River wildlife
Finally we reached the sea, although not very deep and hence were spotted fisherman's houses on stilts and lots of fishing boats.
This one wasnt in great condition, a wall had blown away
We visited some people fishing, either with nets or by building false shelters for the fish - this was really interesting - to me anyway. They would throw logs into the water - it was only chest high - then stick longer poles into the sand to form a tee pee around the logs - to located then again and also keep the logs together. These were left for an amount of time, to attract fish to live there, then the fishermen would return, roll bamboo walls around the tee pee enclosing themselves inside, 
throw out the logs, in the process building a new tee pee,
then use nets to scoop out all the fish.
It was amazing how many fish they caught from one such tee pee/trap. This was only a small part of the catch.
They kindly gave us some fish to take home, which A put in the bottom of the boat.
After watching this for a while we headed off, back through the canals, we saw some gibbons at one point and pulled up to a tree nearby to have lunch, my second lunch with gibbons, the first being just before I met A, all those years ago.
We then had to head back to reopen the shop. Luckily we arrived back half an hour before sky opened and bucketed down. A's mother came back early as his cousin wanted to meet me. This time I got my basic Thai phrases and my wai right.... While A's mother tended the shop we mended his fishing net. A was constantly concerned that I was bored, I assured him I had come to see him, not be entertained. It has obviously been too long since I spent two weeks on ferry boat in a dry dock with him and 17 other Thai guys.... I love seeing how other people live. Back then they all thought I was crazy to spend my holiday scrubbing a ferry boat, now A was just concerned I was bored.
Unfortunately A thought I was staying for a few days, and if I wasn't about to fly out to Sydney I would have. He was very upset he couldn't take me to his farm or to meet his sister. I assured him that next time I would spend more time on the mainland.
Now all I have to do is work out when I am returning!
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