Turning a natural disaster into a life saving business opportunity – The Land Split
Imagine this… You wake up one morning to find that your farm has been cut in half by an unfathomably deep crack, separating all your crops from your means to farm and harvest them. What do you do?
Well this guy in Pai came up with a very entrepreneurial solution to a disastrous situation, turning this huge land split into a tourist attraction. But The Land Split is more than that. Turning up at the base of the farm, the side that is still usable for crops, you are immediately welcomed to just sit and relax in the numerous hammocks that are placed sporadically across the grounds in the available shady spots.
As soon as we sat down the owner brought over a basket of crispy salted savoury banana chips, roselle jam, boiled potatoes, peanuts, a large cluster of bananas, iced roselle juice and to top it all off, roselle Alcohol too.
We weren’t too sure what to expect from The Land Split before we arrived, we had heard that the owner makes his living by inviting people to enjoy his farm and eat and drink Roselle based products, but we were quite impressed by the array of delights presented to us on the day.
After spending about 45 minutes just chilling out and eating, getting our snacks topped up periodically, we took a little walk up to the actual land split. The sun was blazing hot at full midday stride so the owner rushed over with sunbrellas for the ladies which we thought was a really nice touch of unexpected hospitality.
The Land Split is impressively deep and quite shocking to think that it appeared over night. We can just imagine what it was like to be faced with such a sight early in the morning. If he was extra sleepy he could easily have just fell into it, but luckily that didn’t happen. 😉
After taking a little walk around the split, we retreated back to the hammocks to enjoy the shade with more iced Roselle juice and banana chips. We even encountered a giant chicken; it was definitely the largest chicken we have ever seen in our lives. 😀
J with a massive cock in his hands 😉
The Land Split is funded on a donation basis so you pay how much you feel the experience was worth. There is a little box at the entrance that you drop your Baht into as you leave. We are never quite sure how much to give with these types of payment situations so we just gave the price that we would have paid for a decent lunch per person in town, 100 baht each. The owner was so friendly and gave us a ton of bananas for the road as we left his farm. We will definitely be returning for future visits.
The Land Split Pai Map
View The Land Split Pai Map in a larger map
Some Pet Friendly Hotels In Pai:
The River of Love @ Pai Resort
Jmayel El-Haj – 8 Miles from Home