My Diamond mine

[forreachingme]

Well, i should not say that this beautifull Suso beach is in the Nrthern Philipines, on the foot of the Cordillera mountains, due to the fact of my soon discorey of a DIAMOND MINE...



It will not be told that Suso beach is near St Maria, fishing village...

I helped them recover the nets but it was rather poor what they catched


Here it is, few small baby baracudas...

Most of it died, they left it on the beach, instead of putting it back to the waters and fish it out in a 3 years with 100 pounds more or so...



Aniway, soon they will be fishing form this and the catch will then be better...

The beginning of this Suso Beach is supposed to be my property for my retiring days some 20 years from now, slowing planning...

But i got another place to go now, let's move...

[MeMock]

Are you feeling okay?

[forreachingme]

Frst, we have to rent a few of those to move all my clan...




This is our destination, a small village up in the Cordillera.

the step road trip will scare away many adventurers anyway, so more
for me from this gold mine....



To go up there, choose one old Jeepney without brakes and old preferably, due to the fact that it may fall and be brken anyway after...

and put loads of people wherever people can fit, strange we do not see some on the hood here !

[ChiangMai noon]

^
comic genius.

[forreachingme]

Here we cross the river, dry at this time of the year....

Well this will be flooded very soon, and i should not mention that the DIAMOND MINE lays in this river a few miles up hill...



Some jeepneys end up at middle way...

It goes up hill at extreme, and with the good maintainance of this public transportation system, you're may be faster down suddenly then tougth...

Some times they even forget the safety braking system, a piece of root to put back of the wheel if the motor is not strong and the brakes do not stop the jeepney.... Some young fellows will jump and run in the wood, get some piece of wood or a stone and throw it at the wheel to halt the Jeepney... But some times they have it before this happens, well now i always check this first before to go up hill...

[forreachingme]

The village starts appearing, The jeepney is now covered of dust, and each of ate about a pound of Filipino soil...
Less then one hour to reach the place, well those high ways ! ....



POLICE BOOTH at entry of the village, they will check who comes, and ensure you have no booze or drugs as to many figth happend allready and people fall of the mountain as well...

They look scary, i agree !




We reach the house and few people come to great us...



So more people here....

[forreachingme]

Some boxes of beer the village police did not see !

Anyway i bribed them with a few afterward...



So now it is time to enjoy a good San Miguel and prepare a small party...

[forreachingme]

We try go there every April, so we can make a party with a reason

as my daughter has birthday at that time, the whole village is then invited

and gives a hand to it, i think it became the annual village party after few of it...

HERE how to peel a goat, no need of a potato peeler, some straw should do !



Set fire....



Let it burn for a while, and that's what a call a peeled Goat afterward...

[forreachingme]

Beheading...

Seen the amount of people a few goat and 2 pigs are normally necessary...




Some more in sight...

and then cooking should start...

Next year i heard it will be the turn of the buffalo !

And the other day they ate my Dog, some just told me...

[forreachingme]

The cooking fellows...



Clean food, good taste, doing it with the proper tools...

The stuff on the bamboo sticks was for me, as i find it a bit to tasty their mix...



And here the service team...

it will not be revealed that the chap on the left found a diamond mine near there afterward...

[friscofrankie]

Great Pics and Narrative. You got more, I hope?

[forreachingme]

Are you feeling okay?

Gosh, the Aussie newspeople are aware of the discovery allready...

[forreachingme]

Well the party goes on, as some people pass on the common locomotion buffalo down of our house...

But the problem remains, PEOPLE ARE POOR HERE, they live well, they grow Tobacco and rice by alterning crops, but without money, everithing over here is exchange still, give me 2 chickens and i gave you a small pig...

As per myself i have a sligth idea about minerals and stones from my time spend in India where i went often to purchase Saphires ,rubys, emeralds, and bags full of Amethists, turquoise, lapis lazuli... This in JAIPUR, world capital of stone enhancement, but not for DIAMONDS, diamonds there are plenty BOMBAY or MUMBAI for the modern age people, but this is the world center of the small or micro DIAMOND...

Big diamonds are for Antwerpen, South Africa ventually Russia as per sharpening them, eventually Thailand also...

[forreachingme]

My picture machine, once battery low does some funny things...

I looked at the soil and we went to a river bed, sorry no pics about this, the river walls 50 meter high were extremely redish, this means normally rich in Steel, or oxyde of steel, or eventually Copper could be present there as well....

Those 2 minerals are difficult to treat and move down to the civilisation, we are high up in the Cordillera and such a processing plant needs lots of huge machines, roads etc...

The chaps always talk about their CARBON, but there is may be something with the carbon....

Well DIAMOND is CARBON !

What about the Carbon?

They discovered a huge piece of Carbon, in a river bed and many shiny parts in it !

Well if it is Diamond easier to handle then this bloody steel processing plant and huge equipement...

Therefor the PROSPECTOR group on top pic, we decided to go and investigate, if one can tell them if is diamond or not, i could surely help, but first tougth was that GOLD yes plenty int he Philippines but DIAMOND, never heard ot it there...




And there goes the prospection team, near 4 hour walk up and down hills to reach this river bed...

[Marmite the Dog]

The suspense is killing me...

[forreachingme]

So here we are, we reached the place, in a curve, on the river bed, a tipicall and good place to find gold i could say,

A block of CARBON, Black is pointing at us, they tell me, THIS IS IT....



So What to do now ?

let's cook some sticky rice in a green bamboo and let the white gringo look at the carbonised piece of tree...

[forreachingme]

The father in law takes his huge piece of steel (BARAMINE) and couch breaks of some of it !!

Hep hep, slowly wait please... If it is something interesting it should not be the way to look at it, a closer look and IT IS BLODDY FULL OF VERY SHINY PARTS...

Well Diamond is carbon, carbon is diamond, Hemm...



WOW now the water level comes high! No sorry this is again sony battery playing funny...

The carbon path was goind sidewise a bit, i took some out and it was looking good, it was all small pieces, this is good news also cause big it is not found, diamond...

It is shiny, and it scratches the beer bottle like hell, this is good sign too...

[forreachingme]

I can give you a few shots of it, it took us really 4 hours to reach this place and now, well great it looks good...

It's brilliant, found like a window, but as soon as you touch it, iw will give piece not bigger then 3 to 4 mm the bigger ones... if it came out big, forget it, could not be diaond straigth away...

So this is small, is scratchy, is brilliant, one could think it is AMBER as it looks like being a tree this black carbon...

now the guys are playing scratch and break the beer bottle...

Another says this stuff arrived here like a meteorite, BLOOOMMM big crash, a passing guy saw it, he runned away, well we do not know what it is, let's take some of it...




This is the criminal who now broke it out...

[forreachingme]

it is time to pack it and leave...



a good vew of the river bed...



There we go, another good 4 hours to walk back, it is bloody HOT,

as Thailand in april the weather is killing , and we are a bit loaded, well they are...

Plenty left on the floor, if anybody interested...it is not amber as amber is brown...

Should be washed away by now our mess, this is a real rough river sometimes after april...

[forreachingme]

We reached home by the last rays of the sun and had some more home work before going to sleep....

Have you spotted the small white plate in the middle ?



Anyway here a better look at it...

I've got a friend Jeweller in Bangkok, ring him up, and ask advice....

In the same time the things start to get scary, if this is real DIAMOND, bloody hell, THIS VILLAGE IS RICH, and will be spoiled and full of pistoleros quick...

What a shame and i initiated that...

Up i go to the library, my friend tell me, it is most probably not diamond, exept if you find some BLUE SOIL around there...

The rather poor library has nothing about diamond or stones, but on my way back, i see one guy, resharpening his knife, on what ?

A BLUE STONE, interesting....

[forreachingme]

To test a diamond, this stuff being the hardest thing on earth or so, try it against something else very hard...

So i go around the village and ask the people to get out their Ruby or saphire rings that i may have a look what is harder...

Well not many people turned up with such a ring and we were left in hope, the problem was, if it is diamond, most probably not, but if yes there is a bloody lot of money left i this river bed !

It will be flooded in a few days with the start of the rain, best thing is to get some young staff, few potato bags and back there we go to tkae the whole of it...

[forreachingme]

we returned with the whole block, may be 200 kg in total we took back from this river bed...

The third day we were working hard to find the small brilliant parts in the black block of petrified carbon....

This Carbon was as STONE, petrified, not at all as charcoal, you can scratch it on you hands and nothing would make you dirty, stone, yes, not charcoal...

Few people came for help, but mainly this is when the village was split in like 2 clans, the family and the OTHERS...

People started to ask, what is the value of that, they had no idea !

I started to tell, well this small one could be 100 USD, but in myself if it is real stuff i was knowing this could be worse a few 10 K us , some of this better ones, and there was so many...

[forreachingme]

Well time to go home, strange, all the village is strange by then...

Now this guy, ok he is the husband of a lady from the village, but they worked hard, collect and select all of that and they leave with the bag full of shiny stones...

We took one cousin of my wife to be less suspicious and i told, if this turns out to be something, it is YOURS, and i'll help you do something correct with it...

we decided not to show the bag in Manila, has the place is a bit more scary and dangerous compared to Bangkok, where i have connections and really safer for that kind of thing...

People asked to come back next month with a new jeepney with good brakes and all other kind of the urgent wishes to be fullfilled...

I visit my jeweller friend in Bangkok and there we are now much more facing the reality....

NOOOOOOO, sorry not DIAMOND, but it looks good and special, very interesting, his best guess was this is Philipinite a stone only found over there in the Philipines...

Few days passed and i had to leave for Switzerland my home country, i send some samples to a friend GEOLOGIST, on the fone he told me, a good thing were you still could make some money would be if it turns out to be METEORITE part, remember this thing a guy told it fall from heaven...

Well Meteorite parts are very heavy metals, mostly nickel, it was not !

Few days later the report came in, it is

QUARTZ

Well Switzerland is QUARTZ, most of the mountains are made out of QUARTZ, It can be a collector item still, if packed in a small jewellry pouch and sold with the petrified carbon, many collector would spend a 20 Us for their collection...

Hope you had a good read, i spend a wonderfull hollyday over there...

if i get some time at hand will try to compile the GOLD MINE story one of those next days...

cheers

[Dougal]

A great story and great pics. Gold star for you

[HermantheGerman]

Reminds me of a song that goes like this.....

I've been a miner for a heart of gold.
It's these expressions I never give
That keep me searching for a heart of gold
And I'm getting old.

anyway.. good story