An Exciting Riverboat Trip

Happy Monday, everyone! It's been a while since my last post here. Have I been affected by the political unrest here? Not much as I'm on the other side of Bangkok, luckily a bit distant from downtown where the protests are held. Amidst the turmoil suffered isolatedly downtown, Thailand is generally in good shape. In our area, life goes on as usual. But thanks to the 2-day emergency holidays declared as I am given some time off from work so I can post here. 
The photo above is taken at the Fisherman's Village in Pranburi, East of Thailand. It's our first time to see thousands of fishing boats docking to unload their catch and preparing for the next long trip over the sea.

This is the boat that took us to a river trip around the protected mangrove area then to the estuary where the fleets of fishing boats are oared.

The explorers walk under the canopy of mangroves towards the boat for an hour river trip.

Mangroves at low tide. This area has been rehabilitated due to the toxic wastes flowing here. It used to be a shrimp farm but because of the high level of toxic wastes, shrimps could no longer thrive so the rehabilitation was necessary. Now, it grows a vast robust mangrove plantation of various species and is recovering fast to be a productive area for fish, crab and shrimp farming again.

Our boatman, also trained as tour guide, explained to us that these are century-old mangroves in this area. He also showed us baby crocodiles but I wasn't quick enough to capture them. He also slowed down close to monitoring lizards but they're so wiggly so all my shots were not so good.  Still need to improve my skills at photography, hehehe!  Overall, it was truly an educational and relaxing trip not only for us adults but for our curious kids. Thanks to my generous department for this yearly retreat:)

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