An interesting bit of history on the Ing, Kok & Fang rivers.
These 3 rivers basically flow South to North & into the Mekong. The only other river in the North to do this is Mae Lao?
In the early Siam logging days, teak was cut & dropped into the rivers of the Chao Phraya watershed to end up in Bangkok.
But not that of the Ing & the Kok, because these rivers flowed into the Mekong watershed & getting the logs over the ridgeline into the other watershed was too difficult.
So what happened & who got the contracts & did the logging - not the Brits & the Borneo Company / Bombay Burmah Trading Corporation / The Siam Forest Company, but the French with French East Asiatic Company who floated the logs down the Ing or the Kok & into the Mekong to eventually end up in Saigon, Vietnam!
The Ing logging concession was given to the French in 1909.
Previously though in 1901 the Bombay Burmah Trading Corporation had the logging concession, but found it too difficult to get the logs into the Chao Phraya watershed by the Yom river.
The solution was for a new logging concession: The Ing forests would be subdivided into three sections north, central, and south forests. The south section, the timbers of which could be worked into the Yom River, was granted to the Siam Forest Company. However, the north and central sections, from where the only feasible export route was via the Mekong watershed, were given to the French East Asiatic Company. And so the timber from Phayao eventually ended up at Saigon in the Mekong!
The Kok Logging Concession was granted in 1912, after the return on the French East Asiatic Company was not commensurate to their investment in the Ing concession. The agreement was that they would harvest the Ing for 15 years and then the Kok for 15 years.
The Fang River that flowed North was an exception though, as the Siamese government of the day was concerned about the French gaining excessive influence and stipulated that the timber of the Fang forests would not be transported along the Mekong River. The Borneo Company had the Fang logging lease and to move the logs out they constructed a tramway on which loaded trucks were drawn by elephants from the final delivery point in the forest to the top of the watershed, and a chute or timber-slide to transport the logs down the precipitous slopes from the highest point on the watershed at the end of the tramway. From 1912 to 1930 teak was transported into Mae Phan and Mae Poi, tributaries of the Ping River in the Chao Phraya watershed. Somewhere on the headwaters of the Fang river there may still be an old tramway cutting?
Transporting Timber from the Ing down the Khong to Saigon
Moving timber out along the meandering Ing was not without difficulty.
The teak was felled in the upper watershed of the Ing River, around Ban Tam Nai, Ban Ronghai and Ban Phin near Phayao town.
Floating the teak out usually started in June / July at the start of the wet when the water level in the Ing was rising.
The logs were floated downstream to Thoeng, where some were processed at a sawmill beside the river, & /or made into rafts.
From Thoeng downstream the river was more difficult and meandering.
Thung Ang 5 kms before the confluence of the Ing & the Mekong, at Thung Ang just east of R1020 & west of R1155
Google Maps there was a huge horseshoe bend in the river that caused log jams so the French cut a canal through to alleviate the problem. This big bend was also used as a storage yard for logs. (I wonder about all the other bends in the Ing, through the Boon Rueng wetlands?)
Ban Ten 3 kms further downstream at Ban Ten, where there now is a bridge across the Ing, the Royal Forest Department established a duty station to collect taxes on the logs.
Google Maps
Down the Khong In March - April the logs were then floated down the Mekong river. Khamu labourers were used for the journey down the Khong, because of their price & Mekong experience.
The main obstacle on the Khong going downstream was the Khone Phapheng rapids in the south of Laos.
Depending on the season, the log rafts were moored at Don Dek and Don Khone & dismantled to be floated through small channels (wet season), or carried across Don Khone by the train in the dry season.
Overall it took two years for logs to be floated downstream from Chiang Khong to Saigon!
The French East Asiatic Company processed about 4,000 logs annually at two sawmills, one near Saigon and the other near Phnom Penh.
Cheers....I will always look at the Ing a little differently now after discovering this info.
Interesting, found some more info on moving those logs on the Fang & Ing / Yom rivers.
The Fang Forest
The second example of new technology used in teak transportation was the case of the Fang Forest (ป่าฝาง).
The concession area belonged to the Borneo Company. Fang was previously a district in Chiang Rai province but it is now located in the administrative district of Chiang Mai province.
The company faced transport difficulties in this area in 1913. The company possessed a teak concession near the city of Fang.
The Fang concession area, however, was surrounded by mountains.
As an inter mountain area, the whole concession area was very small at around just 365 square kilometres, the smallest concession of the Borneo Company.
The nearest river to Fang is the Mae Kok River, a tributary of the Mekong River which flows to Saigon.
The company encountered difficulties floating logs down to the Ping River and so it diverted the logs to the Chao Phraya River.
To solve the problem, a land route was established and two chute tunnels were installed to connect the concession area with the Ping River drainage area situated to the west.
The company also constructed a cart road from Fang along the foot of the hills where the Kok River and the Ping River met.
It also constructed two narrow gauge (750 mm) tracks that helped to transport logs.
Twenty teak logs were transported daily by light railway on steep terrain until it reached the top of the Ping watershed − this was a distance of five kilometres.
The task of loading logs onto the rail system still depended on elephants.
The susceptibility of elephants to the summer heat compelled the loading process to stop immediately from February each year.
When the logs were unloaded, the last phase of the transportation process was a dirt road.
Here, the company depended on buffaloes and oxen instead.
They helped to haul teak logs to the final point.
When teak logs reached the top at the end of cart road, a second chute of 800 metres in length was installed.
The company staff floated each log from this high elevation down through the chute tunnel to the ground level, where an elephant waited to load logs onto a second light railway.
There was a telephone system for signalling the release of teak logs to prevent elephants from being injured.
The second track was 7.3 kilometres in length but the second chute was shorter than the first one.
Finally, each teak log was put in a second chute tunnel that directly connected the hilltop to the Ping River.
With this method, all of the logs were transported through the Fang Forest towards the Mekong River and, eventually, to Bangkok.
The Mae Chun Forest
The third technological experiment with teak transportation was the case of the Siam Forest Company’s concession in Phayao province.
The Siam Forest experiment took place in The Mae Chun Forest (ป่าแม่จุน).
It was located near the Mae Chun stream (currently known as Nam Chun น้าจุน) in Chun district (อ าเภอจุน).
Nam Chun is a stream connected with the Ing River, a tributary of the Mekong River.
The Siam Forest Company had a similar problem to the Borneo Company.
Their concession area was connected with a tributary of the Mekong River instead of a tributary of the Chao Phraya River.
Specifically, the Siam Forest Company had trouble floating teak logs down the Nam Chun stream because its canal-like size could not accommodate a large number of logs, especially considering uncertain water levels each year. Floating logs down the Mekong River might drastically reduce supply to the company’s sawmill in Bangkok.
Given the location of the forest, company staff surveyed the location in 1912.
It conducted a study exploring the feasibility of floating teak logs through the Yom River, where the logs would then be diverted to the Chao Phraya River.
This method required a cart road and railway to aid in the transportation of teak logs.
This system needed to be bigger than the one used in the Fang Forest by the Borneo Company.
The plan to construct a railway worried the London office and there were few supporters.
Nevertheless, the plan was finally approved by the London office.
The company constructed a metre gauge railway, which was similar to track sizes in Burma, British Malaya, and Siam.
The construction began with the cart road; this started from the area of the Ing River watershed to the northern area of Phayao province along the Yom River.
The construction of this was finished in 1912 at Pong (ปง)district.
Here, the company established a station to connect it to the terminus in the Mae Chun Forest area.
In 1913, shortly after the cart road was finished, the company started to build the railway to connect the concession from the Ing River with the Yom River.
From the Mae Chun Forest, the company transported teak logs by railway to Pong district.
The total distance from the forest to the floating point was 78.8 kilometres.
From Pong district, the logs were transported via the cart road and reached the floating point near the city of Phrae.
The total expense of construction was 100,000 Pound Sterling, excluding the construction costs for a repair station, workshop, and a temporary dam that held water to facilitate floating during winter.
This investment allowed the company to transport between 30 and 56 logs every day, except on Sundays.
With the assistance of the railway, all of the logs reached Bangkok within two years.
A massive investment in the Mae Chun Forest apparently showed that the company did not expand its business outside of Phayao for more than a decade.
From 1902 to 1927, the number of teak concessions held by the Siam Forest Company increased from just a single concession to two concessions.
However, it is also important to consider the estimated number of teak logs extracted by the Siam Forest Company.
It was possible for the company’s sawmill to rely on just one forest.
According to a report submitted to King Rama VII in 1927, it seems that there were only three forests with a yield of more than hundred-thousand teak logs. The concession of the Siam Forest Company in Mae Ngao was one of them.
Although Mae Chun yielded 92,715 logs, a smaller amount compared to Mae Ngao, it was still higher than the average yield for a concession throughout the whole industry.
Source: Control and Prosperity: The Teak Business in Siam 1880s–1932
