Home » categories » rare book library » Smyth. Journey on the Upper Mekong.
This chapter is tagged (labeled) with: 

Ch. 1: Bangkok to Muang Nan

Ch. 1: Bangkok to Muang Nan Page of 117 Ch. 1: Bangkok to Muang Nan Text size:minus plus Restore normal size   Mail page  Print this page
18                              NOTES OF A JOURNEY ON
north and turning into the Nam Nan considerably north of M. Sisaket. Three days going down this lovely valley brought us through a rough piece of limestone country to Muang Sa, where I stayed some days visiting several places in the neighbourhood. This town­ship is important, and stands by the Nam Nan in a very fine paddy-growing plain, and is better supplied with inhabitants than the
country we had come through; but even here the tigers are very bold, and often come right into the villages. Small irrigation canals extend in all directions.
Like the quarrymen in North Wales, whenever there is a cry of " gold " at Clogan, the Laos take every piece of yellow copper pyrites or iron pyrites for gold, and we had several very hard days' travelling both east and west after gold-mines of this description.
The minimum readings for the last five days were 62°, 49°, 46°, 43°, and 45° Fahr., and going on one day's march over the plain to Muang Nan, the capital of this great province, we had 60° as minimum for several days.
The salas stand outside the red-brick walls of Nan, and are only a few hundred yards from the river, and here was every sign of prosperity; every other family seems to own an elephant or two.. The houses are well built and enclosed in stout palisades; and beside: the town inside the walls, there is a very large number of houses between them and the river. I saw numbers of dug-outs arriving with cotton, and many too going away south. There are a few Burmese shopkeepers along the east wall, their principal stock consisting check-patterned panungs and sarongs and small knickknacks, be boxes, and a little silver-work. A mule caravan of Haws from th
Ch. 1: Bangkok to Muang Nan Page of 117 Ch. 1: Bangkok to Muang Nan
Suggested Illustrations
Other Chapters you may find useful
Other Books on this topic
bullet Tag
This Page