Vacation in Thailand. Some family/friends shots and most of Supathraland in Rayong, Thailand. A huge fruit park. You can eat and pick all you want! So, if you're interested, just cut and paste the link into your browser. Each pic has a little summary/comments.

http://s23.photobucket.com/albums/b358/ohiojay/Supathraland%20Thailand%202007/?start=all&mediafilter=images

http://s23.photobucket.com/albums/b358/ohiojay/Misc%20Thailand%202007/

http://s23.photobucket.com/albums/b358/ohiojay/Patthaya%20Thailand%202007/

http://s23.photobucket.com/albums/b358/ohiojay/Patthaya%202%20Thailand%202007/

thanks Ohiojay!

Really enjoyed that!

Wait till the wife reads all about your captions on the pics, you might get into trouble!

Great pics Jay !

What a fruit tasting treat! Thanks for the pictorial essay!

Thank you for the time taken to give us such a nice tour of Thailand. Planting grapes on the raised beds does two things. 1). greatly increases drainage, 2) allow easy picking and vine pruning without constantly bending overing. Thanks again. - Millet

Some grape rootstocks will tolerate waterlogged conditions, and so raised beds are not that critical for me unless the area is flooded from time to time due to tropical monsoonal rains. What I really liked about their grape culture is the overhead protection from the tropical rains which is a bigger problem and would cause a lot of diseases and poor quality fruits when growing grapes in the very humid tropics.

Thanks for the photos Jay! The "wife's sister" one was a hoot! For some reason I've never thought of bagging star fruit before. The santol pic was inspirational as my seedling is only about a foot tall.

Good pics Jay, thanks! I have a friend from Thailand that would love to see them. I will be sure to show them to her the next time she is here.

Ned

Great observations concerning the grape vines guys. We all asked the questions about the raised beds and the plastic canopy. The raised beds do indeed facilitate draining and the plastic protected new flushes, blooms, and small fruit from the punishing rains they can receive. If you noticed, some of the vines were without leaves. We asked about this too. As soon as the grapes are harvested, every single leaf is snipped and the branches pruned. This kicks in another growth flush and fruiting soon after. They sort of force the cycle into high gear I guess.

They have over 200 workers taking care of the park's trees and orchards. I wasn't exaggerating when I said some of the orchards went on for acres and acres! And more! They had a mangosteen orchard that went farther than you could see. Truly a beautiful site.

They bagged a lot of different varieties of fruit. What a job that would be. My wife's mother does the same for a lot of her fruit as well. It's is littorally a battle with red ants to get to the fruits. Not me man. I have a healthy respect for those buggers.

The bus drivers at the park were always giving a rundown on what what going on in the park, happenings with different trees and fruit, and being funny. I seemed to only get the translations of the funny parts. The first stop on the tour was the rambutan. You could eat what was already picked or go out and pick your own...or be daring and climb the rickety ladders with the million foot pole and snip a branch yourself. After leaving the rambutan, the bus driver told us that the park put the rambutan as the first stop knowing everyone would gorge themselves on rambutan. Then everyone would be full when they reached the next stop which was mangosteens and durian!! Of course he was lauching his butt off at his own little joke. Was pretty funny though...after the translation.

The price of admission equaled about $5.71 U.S. dollars. I've been to Florida's Fruit and Spice Park, Fairchild Gardens, and The Kampong. All were much more expensive and you were not allowed to touch any fruit, let alone eat any. So a great deal and a lot of fun.

oh that looks like a dream!

ive got a few tiny dragon fruit, thats amazing to see a pile of fruit!