Dan Singkhon

Posted on November 11, 2010 by Mike

Stalls selling rainforest plants

Plants for sale Dan Singkhon

Yesterday I had to visit the Thai immigration post at Dan Singkhon and since it was a pleasant day, once I had finished my business we decided to continue along the road to the Thai/Myanmar border which is the location of a cross border market.

Its a while since I have visited the market and I wanted to check out if there had been any developments, since rumour has it that the normally closed border is to be opened allowing vehicle access across Myanmar from the Indian Ocean side to the small Thai port at Khlong Wan on the Gulf of Thailand, near where I live.

There has been considerable development of the port in Khlong Wan and I had read locally that the road from the border was being improved.

Well the market has certainly got larger since my last visit and the road from the border to the top of the hill on the Thai side has been developed and is now a wide concrete strip.

Orchids for sale Dan Singkhon

Orchids Dan Singkhon

Most of the new stalls at the market are selling the same touristy junk and are in my opinion not worth a look.  The plant and orchid market on the other hand is certainly worth a walk round although there was very little for sale yesterday.  This might well have been because it was a week-day although the local drought conditions probably have affected things too.

Normally there are a huge range of orchids and other rainforest plants on sale at Dan Singkhon, many of them being rare and even protected species. It is however debatable where some of these plants originate from, with some definitely being grown in Thailand and shipped to the border for sale, perhaps under the guise of coming from Myanmar.

Pitcher plant cup

Pitcher Plant

However the plants that do originate from Myanmar, are often stripped from their natural habitat, which  includes cloud forest or dense jungle and are not necessarily suited to the baking heat of a garden in Thailand.

Wild birds are also sold at the market particularly the Hill Myna(talking Myna) and small birds noted for their singing such as the Red-Whiskered Bulbul(Pycnonotus sinenis). A favourite of Thai villagers who enter their birds in singing contests.

The other main product sold at the Dan Singkhon market is furniture. Although this is usually very expensive and mostly made in Northern Thailand despite what the seller might claim. There are also several shops in the village specialising in such products.

Historically the area at Dan Singkhon is important since it affords a pass through the Tanao Sri Mountains and was used by the Burmese on military forays into Thailand(Siam) in the  past. The area is also very close to the narrowest part of Thailand with the distance from the Gulf of Thailand to the border being around 15km.

GPS for market: 11.78974 and 99.64144

Related posts:

  1. Dan Singkhon Thai Immigration Closed
This entry was posted in Flora and Fauna, Markets, Visiting Thailand. Bookmark the permalink.
  • http://www.phanathailife.typepad.com Lawrence

    A very interesting post, Mike. It must make visa renewal almost a pleasure. And that obviously went well since you finished with time to spare and no adverse comments. You still don’t know whether the border will open to traffic though, do you? The wild orchid thing is a difficult one, but as you know Pensri has bought several from the Lao border and they do fairly well in the Phana garden.

    • http://www.thailand-blogs.com Mike

      Lawrence, thanks. I actually went to immigration to get a letter for renewing my Thai drivers licence. Whilst I was there an officer told me that they were closing and moving to Hua Hin, which, if it pans out will not be a pleasure. 8km v 90km ;-)

      Some of my orchids are from Singkhon, which do OK, some of the other rainforest plants however don’t. I guess the Lao trade is similar?

      • http://www.thaisabai.org Martyn

        Mike your mention of certain flowers doing okay and others not, reminds me of my phone conversation with WW today. The Iris bulbs I found in my suitcase on my last trip have just started to shoot, and that’s them coming all the way from Blighty. That’s a result.

        • http://www.thailand-blogs.com Mike

          Martyn, definitely a result, of course once released into the wild the said Irises will take over all the rice paddies and Thailand will be looking for the culprit ;-)

  • http://ricks-eastasiablog.typepad.com/ricks_east_asia_blog/2010/11/to-fall-or-not-fall-for-new-kawasaki-big-bike.html SiamRick

    Thanks for the cultural tidbit, Mike. It was a nice, compact and informative piece. And you also put it in geographical and historical context very well. Reminds me that I need to do that more often, especially the geographical location of a feature or event. It’s all about relationships, which help readers to place things.

    • http://www.thailand-blogs.com Mike

      Hi Rick, thanks, I started adding the GPS and like after one or two folk suggested it helps with more out of the way places. Easy to search Google maps with too. There is a lot more history about the pass and its role in past invasions (oops sorry forgot Thailand has never been invaded).