Where does kratom grow in Thailand?

[mauve]

We all cross fingers for you and your new plants ! Good job !

[tuamai]

Sawat Dee Khap, Kadakuda.

No posts in 8 or 9 days! Figure you're back in Taiwan recuperating from your trip.

Hope all's well.

[kadakuda]

got back last night Success on the kratom front. I managed to get 4 fresh cuttings, fingers crossed they root! also a neat wild Piper "betel(?)" vine from the same spot.

not much need for recouping as the time difference at most was only 3 hours for here i think, so all good. legs are sore, but many massages and cannabis helped with that throughout.

i have a notebook filled with notes. many nonsensical and im not sure even i can decode some of it. but overall lots of cool plants All my mitragyna plants aside from the latest M. speciosa died in my backpack. its wasnt so easy keeping them happy for 3 weeks. but i did collect seed pods of unknown maturity. they were brown on the tree, so i hope for something.

one of the guys i met in southern thailand took me out one night to photograph bugs in the mountains and we had a long chat about kratom. he said i could have some fruit from his tree the next day but he got sick and that never happened but his nephew took me to one of his trees where he let me grab a stack of leaves and some cuttings. i dont know if its the norm, but the leaves they had were bitter but no where CLOSE to as disgustingly bitter as the ones i have growing. but they were plenty strong.

Same guy told me that night that the fruits can be eaten and are VERY strong. so much so he said they dont use them because they often make you sick. any of you guys heard that? my ears picked up when he mentioned it.

anyway, i have about 120gb of pictures to sort through so pics will happen, but maybe not so quickly lol. i will also post more pics of other plants over at the nook where i have a thread about all plants.

edit. too much writing without pics. more later.

Kratom in South Thailand

Edited August 31, 2011 by kadakuda

[planthelper]

the leaves you did chew, were dried already for a while, or fresh from the tree?

sound interressting what you say about the "fruit", at what stage of flower or seed development do they get used?

i mean a kratom flower is a fluff ball and a mature pod is very woody, how do they get used?

i could imagen, it's possible to smoke the young flower?!

to travel with cuttings is not easy, but it's possible to carry a small squash proof container, which would contain the already prunned and shaped cuttings.

as a emergency container, one can fuse two softdrink bottles, which had the top cut off. to make one bottle slide water tight into the other, just emerge the rim of one bottle in hot water.

[kadakuda]

The ones i had are fresh. even when they drink as tea they use fresh. at least the people i met had never heard of using dried leaves.

I am not sure at what stage the fruit is ready. the guys English is so so and my thai is zero. but he said fruit and not flower at least. and he said its not so hard so that means not when its dry or ready to pick. after that i am not too sure.

That is exactly how i travel with cuttings, large water bottles. the issue is we were on foot for too many hours much of the time and i think the dark liekly killed them. I always take them out by a window, take off the top and change the water if we are at a guesthouse/hotel etc, but sometimes we are only there in the dark night hours which doesnt help much. only the cuttings early on died, meaning Laos/Cambodia. all the thai stuff is so far golden and much of the burma stuff is good too i use the same method for getting through the airport in check in but i use a small bottle and put it in my wifes cosmetic bag which has many other bottles. then tip it upright so that it is standing when going through the xray, harder to see plant forms that way. so far, touch wood, its worked out great

[tuamai]

Glad to hear you made it back ok. You are the intrepid traveler!

In what province did you find the kratom in? How did you come

to meet the Thai guy with the Kratom tree. Very difficult to

meet Thai people out in the boonies who know any English at all!

Most Thai people that I've talked to about kratom say that it

cures diabetes. Did you hear anyone say that? Haven't been down

south since the 80's, but didn't ever hear of kratom back then.

[Evil Genius]

Most Thai people that I've talked to about kratom say that it

cures diabetes.

You know, thats funny because i always felt like becoming hypoglycemic from it. At least thats how i used to interpret the nausea i got from it.

[kadakuda]

interesting, i never heard of the diabetes thing, and not on this trip either. Although i did catch a ride in a guys pickup and we got to talking about kratom (cause i was chewing some leaf and offered him some) and he pointed to a friend of his we passed on the road and he told us he eats a massive stack daily. 50+ leaves apperantly. Anyway he says its good in small amounts for working (they are farmers) but this guy used to be a very strong guy (he had a big build for sure) and the guy giving us a ride said now he is just useless. and when he isnt chewing he just sits around and has zero energy for working. so there certainly seems to be some health risks for huge long term use. that said he also drinks whiskey with it....

In what province did you find the kratom in? How did you come

to meet the Thai guy with the Kratom tree.

Surat Thani. when we were there it was flooding pretty bad, about chest high 2 days. so we had a lot of time walkign around. i was doing my usual lonely strolls around the forest in heavy rain cause i like to just go shirtless and have some peace and quite away from people in the pounding rain, and it would seem locals find that interesting so it was always easy to start chatting up with people. offer them a brew or a leaf and they are like your best bud i was far too scared to buy weed in Thailand but i was given plenty for free by a few people which surprised me. people there are just simply nice

Another story we were told and have no reason to not believe it though it sounds pretty strange is some "youths" make a tea of the leaves and mix in mosquito coils or shake it on the inside of fluorescent light tubes....no wi have no idea how true that is or how it would be effective but i can bet its probably pretty fucking poisonous.

the kratom tree was kind of neat. the first day i went through the forest and found some piper betel which turns out to be a wild relative, which seems the same to be but flavor a little different. i went and looked for some betel nut trees and grabbed some nuts (by the way they are the FATTEST betel nut palms i have seen in my whole life!!!!) so i was out lime. i did get a couple dead snail shells cause i was actually really jonesing for some chew, and i mentioned that to a guy i was talking to who laughed and said to walk to town to get lime. couldnt find it there but another old guy took me to some young guys (mean looking people, but very nice). he ran behind the building they were standing in front of and came back with some better nuts and some leaves with a wad of lime, so i was set. then the last day we were in the area the guy went to show me a live kratom tree as i said i grow it in Taiwan but i really want to photograph a tree in thailand. so he pulls up to this same house and the same guy takes me just behind that hut to his little kratom tree (pic above) and lets me grab a stack and some cuts. pretty sweet deal.

I was told that Phuket town, we were in phuket for a few days, had lots...but i didnt see any despite a hard search. though being a dummy i never did try the market lol. he told me 1 kg of leaf sells for 2500-3000 baht there and he confirmed what tuamai mentioned about 500 baht per leaf bride (i mean fine). but he said they always rip the leafs into pieces and the cops just dont bother to count and give a 500B fine for the mess lol.

i went through all my pics fo that tree and they are all absolute shit. i took so much time getting everything ready and even shot in RAW to make sure i can edit. but i was very drunk and pretty stoned and i totally overexposed every damn shot (i had turned down my cameras LCD brightness to the lowest somehow). so much for that. i can be pretty lame at times!

[kadakuda]

there i go rambling without pics. Here are some photos, scuze the quality.

Southern Laos, within 200m of the Mekong river.

Habitat

Northern Cambodia, not far from Stung Treng (sp?).

Habitat

[Rabelais]

Great shots.

I was in Surat Thani not that long ago, wish I had seen this thread earlier. I'll never forget the bus ride from there to Phuket, those sheer cliffs popping up along the road had me mesmerised. Beautiful country and people.

I never seen anything like Kratom in the market in Phuket Town - think it was the one just off Thalang road, down from the round-a-bout.

[kadakuda]

Ya im sure its hidden away from tourist areas as the police there seem to search it out a bit, at least im told that.

you are totally right, the bus ride is quite pretty. the bus driver seemed to like day dreaming more than we did though lol. Next time i am renting a real motor bike and doing it proper around that area. i think that would be a fantastic couple week trip just motoring around southern thailand at your own pace.

[Psylo]

Ya im sure its hidden away from tourist areas as the police there seem to search it out a bit, at least im told that.

you are totally right, the bus ride is quite pretty. the bus driver seemed to like day dreaming more than we did though lol. Next time i am renting a real motor bike and doing it proper around that area. i think that would be a fantastic couple week trip just motoring around southern thailand at your own pace.

 

Hope you had a great time, and look forward to seeing more photos, plant related or not. Did you make it into the tubing & mushroom capital of Asia ?

[kadakuda]

hey bro, you know it. I find it actually VERY touristy, not at all what i was expecting. but it was still nice, no question. I had my share of happy shakes and pizza. to be honest, i was sort of careless at times but was never once hassled, luckily. we brought huge bags of "stuff" across the laos/cambodia border with ease, they are totally lax and just looking for their stamp fees lol. I did find it very annoying at times as i REALLY love to hike/walk in the forest, which is something we were always told not to do in case of bombs...so that made the entire trip through laos/cambosia like one big tease. especially laos, it is just so beautiful there its hard to put to words.