By Thai Newsroom Reporters
VILLAGERS IN A western Thai province have been eagerly inviting visitors to dig for gold in a creek, literally.
The villagers in Ron Thong community in Bang Sapan district of Prachuap Khiri Khan province are not only digging for gold themselves in the creek called Klong Thong but inviting travellers and tourists to join them in the happy-go-lucky activity.
Krisada Muadnoy, one of the locals who have launched a distinctive campaign for sight-seeing and gold-digging tourism, confirmed there remain tiny lumps of natural gold in the stream which flows all the way from an evergreen forest in Tenasserim mountain range straddling between Thailand and Myanmar.
Visitors including those who may come from Bangkok, about 350 kilometres north of Bang Sapan district, are offered a shovel and a pail with which they may dig for gold in the shallow water for 100 baht in rent, no matter how many hours they will spend doing so in a day, according to Krisada.
Gold prices have continued to soar and on August 5 the price of one baht weight (15.244 grams) gold ornaments climbed to 30,200 baht before sliding down. Prices are expected to reach and possibly breach that point again sooner or later.
Many would prefer to keep to themselves a lump of gold which they might find in the creek as a piece of invaluable fortune.
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Top: Gold next to a quarter but this precious lump does not belong to the photographer. Photo: Nick Ares (CC BY-SA 2.0)
