Thailand forum

Hi there,
it must have been some kind of great luck, that I found this really non-touristic place while travelling south through Thailand. It’s a little farm in the middle of beautiful green hills, 50 km west of Hua Hin, where the holidays I spent here gave me such a very different experience that I ever had at any other place I’ve been travelling to before.
A young Thai couple, Wat and Chabaa, is caring about this place with all their heart, turning this land into something like paradise: growing fruits and vegetables, totally organic, serving amazing, mostly vegetarian, healthy food as in a class restaurant (without MSG and all the artificial food supplements commonly used here), taking me as a part of their family, open heated and minded and trying to preserve ancient wisdoms about how to live close to nature. The absence of television, radio and almost any type of consumerism let me take a deep breath and a real rest from whatever just kept me busy and absentminded.
I stayed in a simple, but clean and nice bamboo hut (aerated only by the fresh air of the night), where I felt asleep every night with the sounds of the pure nature around, waked up by the sunlight and the cockcrows of the nearby farms. I could learn how to plant trees and so much about natural farming, gathered plants, vegetables and fruits for the meals I was also free to help to prepare and thereby learned how to cock real good Thai food. I could do various kinds of work here, but not for the sake of work, but for the sake of personal enriching experience far away from the common, mostly brain based tasks of my daily modern western life at home.
From there it’s easy to get guided tours with a local guide into the near jungle, watching animals like elephants or birds and beautiful flowers as well as visiting waterfalls like the nearby at Pala-U.
After taking a bath in a pictorial stream every night, while having a wonderful dinner with them on the wooden floor of their lovely bamboo house, I got a deep insight into the Thai culture, but not only by talking, also by getting in touch with the local culture and daily life by visiting neighbors and other local people, treated in the presence of Wat and Chabaa not as a tourist, but as a guest there. The basic and simple their life, they shared with me, the heart touching happy and friendly they are. No wonder, that they call this place Baan Poh Rak, place of growing love. They also have a website presenting their project: http://mantarniwas.exteen.com/guest-information-english-1
So long, Alex (invia@gmx.de)