Planting Around the World – Mission 6 & 7 (Koh Lanta, Thailand)

In our Planting Around the World Mission our challenge is to plant at least one tree for every country we visit during our world backpacking trip. Why? With all the talk about carbon emissions we may help the environment in our small way. But also because we love gardening, plants and nature, we thought it would be a respectful gesture towards the countries – and its people – we visit. And of course, hopefully, a long lasting memory of our visit.

Another two trees in the ground!

Once again we are planting two in one country – one for Cambodia and one for Thailand.
Why not Cambodia in Cambodia? Well you see, we only stayed in Cambodia for about 48 hours, barely enough to see the Siem Reap complex and have a good night’s sleep.
But we entered the country so we can’t really cop out on planting a tree can we?

Location: *L* Koh Lanta Island. About 100 miles South of Phuket in the Andaman Sea, Koh Lanta is – as we found out – a real jewel where time runs slow and days are spent enjoying the subtler things in life: resting, eating, drinking, swimming and watching beautiful sunsets.

After nearly three weeks in Thailand we found a little nursery here and decided it’s time to get our hands dirty again. As far as we could gather from the staff at the nursery, we bought a Muang tree and a Lucky Plant or Pusetii which has white flowers. Well as far as I’m concerned, as long as it grows it can be called what it likes!

On our hired scooter, we set off on a reconnaissance around the island, two trees and a large digging implement in hand, search of planting ground.

Tree number one was planted on the South East of the island, on the road side about twenty metres before the Panorama Restaurant. This is a nice isolated little place where people stop by on their scooters to come relax and dine whilst taking in the beautiful view of “Homer Simpson?!” Island and the stretch of sea between them.

Jack the owner is a really friendly chap who believes in making people feel really at ease in his little place and he was even kind enough to offer to take care of our tree for us and put up a little plaque by it so it can be identified when we return in years to come. Thank you Jack!

The second tree found a home a few minutes drive further South. Where the road ends there is a school named Sang Ga U School, where we found a lonely looking patch in need of some vegetation.

There were a few children around, playing in the school grounds, but it must have been a holiday because there didn’t seem to be any other activity at the school.

Once we started planting however, more of them started appearing and soon enough we had a proper little audience. The ground was hard and as I struggled to dig up the ground it started raining, which the children found very funny indeed. However despite getting me soaking wet, it was helpful in softening the ground for me.

Tree firmly in the ground, we waved our goodbyes and set off to a small beach-side bar for a refresher. Ebru, walking in with a large pick-like tool in her hand, looked like she’d just walked off a murder scene. LOL

That’s Six and Seven done! How many more to go? I wonder…

Grow little ones, grow!

Planting Around the World Mission, Koh Lanta Island – Ağaç dikme operasyonu, Koh Lanta Adası

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