More Than A Farm
Palaya's round shrimp ponds.
You'd think Palaya Shrimp Farm is a gritty place full of nets and stinky shrimps, but not really. This is more than a farm.
They set up this farm in a huge land area near the sea. Aside from the artificial ponds made for hatching and keeping shrimps, they also have a café inside the area, they have numerous cabins (A-Frame Houses) with pools you can rent, they also have a dirt trail that goes to the beach where you can ride all-terrain vehicles.
Back of the café as seen from the back.
You can visit their webpage to check out all their amenities and offerings here: https://www.palayashrimpfarm.info/.
A close-up of the pond's system.
I walked around the area and took photos of the ponds. The casting area was cool but I wasn't allowed to go on it cause I was not with a staff.
You can rent a net and cast it to the pond to catch shrimp on your own, you can keep the shrimp you caught, or even ask them to cook it for you (I think).
From the casting ledge where you can throw nets to catch shrimp on your own.
Stunning Views!
This place is a long ways away from the city so the views around it comprises of mountain ranges and lots of trees and nature.
Views of mountains in the afternoon.
The views during sunrise and sunset are the most beautiful ones. Mainly because how the sun shines on everything, in photography this is what we call 'golden hour'.
Front of the café.
They also have a café inside the vicinity where you can order coffee, drinks, and food. I wasn't able to order coffee from them as we brought our own coffee and coffee maker.
Another view from our cabin.
We spent our time here during the last New Year's day. It was peaceful and quiet compared to the usual New Year's celebration in the city.
You can see other cabins from this side.
Beautiful mountains from afar.
We have a pool in the rented cabin and it was very refreshing, since it's around Dec-Jan, the water was very cold at night, but it's helpful when you swim in the morning when the sun is too hot.
The pool in our cabin.
Beautiful and Serene Nights!
I also walked around when it's night, because there's little light pollution around this place, I thought I could get lots of astrophotography pictures like this one:
Tried some astrophotography of the night sky.
However, I did not have the proper lenses for astro, the lenses I have are more suited for street and portrait photography.
So, I just took photos of anything that has lights on them, like the cottages and the café:
The cottage at the back of our cabin with lights on at night.
The al fresco area of the café at night.
Decorative lights on a tree.
Their view deck (where you can get a 360-degree view of the circular ponds I shared earlier) has been lit up by Christmas lights and lanterns. It looks great from afar, I did not go near it because there was no staff around.
The view deck at night lit up by lights.
We asked the staff to help us set a bonfire for New Year's. It looked amazing! We planned to roast marshmallow on it, however, they put too much logs in it the fire grew so big that it's too hot to go near to.
I ended up roasting marshmallows in the air fryer. Which worked great as well! Made myself some smores!
Our bonfire at New Year's Eve.
Bonus!
The coffee and dessert from the Aya Café was great! I especially like their Biscoff waffles. I don't have a photo cause I chowed it down real quick!
Cafe's handwritten/hand-drawn signage.
All photos taken by me using my Fujifilm X-S10 and lenses (Viltrox 56mm f1.4 and TTArtisan 27mm f2.8). Most photos are SOOC (straight out of the camera) with no edits.