Chumphon Things to Do

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Chumphon province has a new slogan "Eat seafood Taste fresh fruits".

Have not read before my 1st visit, or had heard about this specialty of the region. Only upon arrival we saw that this place indeed was the fruit growing region or perhaps Chumphon was the collecting center. Unlike other provinces who were cashing in on Mangos, durian and "Loong Ngans", Chumphon produce were consisted mainly of mandarin, papayas, bananas and some pineapples.

But somehow the notable fruit here bananas, and in good volume. More, one special species is unique to this region. I did not confirm the proper name for this species. Locally it is hailed as the "Princess Fingernails Bananas".
The fruit! Nothing out of the ordinary and had tasted it, I must say it finer in texture and rather sweet. I know that bananas in general, the fruit had short gestation time for ripening and at the same time after ripening fit for consumption, the fruit would perished within a day or two. That's why the fruit was unsuitable to be transported out of the province for distribution.

Sales of fresh fruit was so much dependent upon the passing traffic along the Highway 4. From the picture, it could be seen that the long rows of stalls spelled the importance of disposing this fruit quickly and also the sheer volume that was available for this small market.
Not all the bananas on sale were the "Princess Fingers Bananas", there was also the type that we were familiar with. It takes a critical eyes to spot the marginal differences between the 2 types. There are 2 pictures that I do not know how to get them posted on this page side by side for comparison. But I have both included with this page.

The attendants at the stall beside selling the fresh fruits were busy competing with time. They were peeling up the fruits for processing into an alternative product - dried bananas
That's interesting, we stayed on to record the whole process as to how it done and noting the finished products.

The ripe bananas were then baked and prepared for packaging 
A simple oven used for baking the fresh bananas. Realizing that we saw a somewhat "new" product that we had never bothered to take notice. Dried bananas in chips are common junk food but in full, now we know.

The dried products were lighter and easily packaged for longer storage but loosing slightly its food value.