How much for the buffalo?

If San Pa Tong is famous for anything, it is the weekly buffalo market where hundreds of traders and farmers meet to exchange money and the uniquely Asian form of livestock.

But San Pa Tong is not famous. A non-descript town half an hour south of Chiang Mai, San Pa Tong is completely off the Thai tourists' beaten track. Which is suprising, because what could be more uniquely Thai than a noisy, frenetic cattle market?

Search for it on Google and you'll find just a handful of mentions. Now that's obscure. Maybe because it's only in full swing around dawn on a Saturday morning. You won't find a lot backpackers around here willing to get on the road before daybreak to see a buffalo market.

Amanda found it, mentioned only fleetingly on a map of Chiang Mai and the region, and suggested I go. We thought it might be a great opportunity to take some interesting photos of something tourists rarely see.

But try as I might, I couldn't find out how to get there. I could barely work out where it was.

But someone at Amanda's school knew of it, and knew a man who could get me there. So on Friday afternoon, as I was beginning to run out of hope of ever working out how to reach the place, a driver was arranged and booked for me.

The next morning I left our room at five and climbed into the front seat of a song thaew and raced out of Chiang Mai.

I was hoping to pass some pretty countryside on the way, for some nice rice-paddy-at-sunrise sort of photos. But it turns out that San Pa Tong is practically a distant suburb of Chiang Mai, and we passed nothing prettier than a few car showrooms and an enormous Tesco superstore (yes, they have Tesco here - Boots and M&S, too).

After half an hour we reached the market. There were people everywhere, but I could see no sign of any buffalo. But there was certainly plenty of market. San Pa Tong market, as I soon discovered, is about a lot more than buffalo.

It's actually an enormous market for all the people of the region - selling everything from home-made sickles and machetes to t-shirts, shoes and socks, second-hand jeans and a hell a lot of used motorcycles.



It's a local market for local people. No hill-tribe bags, no fisherman's pants and no bloody 'Same Same But Different' T-shirts. Everything's vastly cheaper, too - a pair of socks that would have cost me 100 baht in Chiang Mai cost me 10 baht (14 pence) in San Pa Tong.

But no tourists means no English, too. And I could see no sign of the cattle market. I was worried about that, because you'd think a cattle market would be just a little obvious.

I asked for directions, but no one understood. Not until I curled my fingers and help them up to my head in a rudimentary impression of a buffalo. That did the trick. They may have laughed, but at least they pointed me in the right direction.

Off I went, towards the very depths of the market, and within moments I knew I was on the right track. Not that I could see any cattle yet - But I sure could smell that unmistakeable fragrance of farm animals.

I was spat out of the back of the first half of the market and into the main attraction. It was still dark but I could hear the snorts and lows of many, many cows.

My eyes adjusted to the dim light of dawn, and I could finally see it. Many hundreds of cows crowded into a muddy paddock, surrounded by hopeful sellers and buyers. Even in this light, I could see the buyers cautiously circling one cow or another, affecting indifference while being enthusiastically roped in by the used cow salesmen.



The cows were all of the Asian kind - Brahmans, the ones with the big hump just behind their shoulders, enormous ears and often very impressive horns. There were all kinds; white ones, brown ones, smaller ones and some frighteningly large ones.



And more were arriving by the minute. A road running alongside the fringes of the market, which I missed earlier, was backed up to the main road with trucks and pick-up trucks hauling even more cattle into the market.

But where were the buffalo? I'd seen one or two in some of the holding pens near the cows, but one of the few mentions of this market on the net suggested it was the biggest buffalo market in northern Thailand. Surely there had to be more than one or two?

I tried my buffalo impression again, and a laughing trader pointed to the other side of the road, which was obscured by a phalanx of parked trucks. I squeezed between two of them and over a little hill. And there they were.

In another large and muddy paddock were more buffalos then I've ever seen at one time. Which is not saying much, I've only ever seen a few at once. But, trust me, there were a lot of buffalo here.

I'm not even sure what you need a buffalo for in Thailand - they're often seen pulling a plough in Laos and Cambodia, but you don't see that much in Thailand. But someone must need them, because there was a roaring trade going on.

Men inspecting their teeth, their hooves, their horns. Smacking them on the rump - is this the buffalo equivalent of kicking the tyres of a car you might want to buy?

I hung back taking photos - much to the amusement of the buffalo traders. I don't speak Thai, of course, but it was pretty plain they were gently taking the piss out of me.

I've never been too close to a buffalo before. And with good reason - have you ever seen one? They're huge and their horns look lethal to me. But they're supposed to be docile, so I gingerly joined the traders inside the buffalo pen.

They all wanted me to take a photo of their buffalos, so they could have a look at them in the screen of my digital camera. Odd, they're right there in front of you, you know.

I got close up with a few and found them to be friendly giants. I swear one of them was trying to pose for me - he seemed to love the camera. That big fella was the first - and probably the last - buffalo I've ever patted.



And how much does a buffalo cost, I hear you ask? Well, I can't be sure, but judging by the rapid transactions I saw going on around me I'd say they cost a couple of thousand baht - a little under 30 quid.

Looks a good deal to me. But now I'm having second thoughts about it. Anyone want to take this new buffalo off my hands?

There are a pile of photos of the Sa Pa Tong cattle market right here