the farm
The farm, a term commonly used nowadays referring to a field of technological advancement. I am here however referring to a rather literal meaning of the word, surprising to those who would hardly ever associate a millennial with such a traditional practice. Elisabeth, Diogo and I had the fortune of experiencing a night on a Buddhist organic farm in Chiang Mai, one that Elisabeth had found online, though one thing was for certain - our encounter was nothing like its description.
Our journey began on a bus leaving Phuket at 6.30pm, just 3 hours after I had arrived from KL. We were greeted with reclining seats as well as light snacks and water, which was pleasantly satisfying considering we were going to be on that bus for 12 hours before we reached Bangkok.
The bus stopped at this shady rest area at 12.05am for (late) dinner, forcing us to find every ounce of Thai within us to communicate that we were all vegetarian, including opening my laptop to scan through my TLC notes, until finally using an app on Elisabeth’s phone to translate it to the stall owners which in turn rewarded us with a plate of rice and vegetables. The bus driver approached us shortly after 12.40 to tell us that the bus was in fact leaving and we were close to missing it, calling for snickers by the stall owners along our hurried walk back to the bus at the three foreigners that the bus driver had frantically been looking for. We hopped on for what was to be another 6 hour ride, arriving in Bangkok at around 7am.
Realising Elisabeth's body soap had spilt in her bag. Picture shows us trying to reorganise it.
Just for the record, I only realised we had a 12 hour stopover in Bangkok an hour before we left Phuket, which actually worked out perfectly because my mum was there at the exact same time for meetings. So once we arrived in Mo Chit station, we had to figure out how to get to my mum’s hotel. We began walking but after about 20 minutes it was evident we were getting nowhere, asking multiple individuals for directions in the hope that one may put us on the right track. Our limited Thai with the frequent “Sawadeeka. Yu tee nai _ kha?” did not help much with the language barrier. We walked in what seemed the right direction and bumped into a young Thai chap who spoke limited Thai but to our surprise pretty decent Portuguese, a pleasant surprise especially to Diogo who’s from Portugal. Apparently he had done an exchange year in Brazil, hence his unforseen fluency. He was on the way to the station and offered to show us the way, sparking endless conversation between him and Diogo the whole walk there as well as the train ride to our stop in Sukhumvit. Maneuvering around the hustle and bustle of civilians and city traffic led us to the doorstep of the hotel. The three of us felt rather out of place, dressed pretty plainly in contrast to the businessmen and women.
My mum met us at the lobby, with several sarcastic remarks following our embrace. We had a monster of a breakfast: comforting, fresh bread, bountiful nutella and other delicious delicacies we had been deprived of for months. The coziness of the room soon enveloped us. The shower provided solace from the clammy, sticky feeling that had trailed behind us for hours. The bed was my refuge, allowing me to treat the fatigue of my mind and body from the hours of travelling and walking. The nap was well received by my body, which was later treated to a chocolate Freakshake at the Coffee Club across the street, devoured by Elisabeth, Diogo and I. I waved my mum off in her taxi as she departed for the airport and the three of us then took to the streets to explore. We ended up in a huge mall where we did a bit of studying, had some dinner and made our way to the bus station via the subway.
The puzzled look on our faces must have been all too apparent, because another Thai lady took us under her wings in the subway, guiding us on where to go and where to get off. We had about an hour from the moment we arrived at the subway to when we had to board the bus, so we decided to take a walk to the bus station (before getting lazy and taking a taxi 15 minutes later). We made it to what we thought was the bus station in good time, but were soon ushered hurriedly by a member of staff into a van to be transported somewhere else - this is when we began to get worried. We met a Thai woman at the back of the van, tiny but feisty. She had a reasonably strong command of English, though her frequent curses of “Fucking traffic” tickled us pink, knowing she may not have completely understood the magnitude of what she was saying. We sat in the van looking at the time, realising we were still stuck in traffic at the time our bus was set to leave. We jumped off the van as soon as we arrived and ran in the direction we hoped our bus was, only to realise the bus was nowhere near leaving any time soon. We were even one of the earliest - once again proving the timeliness of Thai timing.
That was not the end of our Bangkok bus adventures. 15 minutes into sitting patiently on the bus, a man with a huge television camera walks onto the bus. Perplexed glances were exchanged between the three of us as to what was going on. A man dressed in a smart white uniform entered the bus, introducing himself as the Minister of Transportation. He began distributing snacks to passengers on the bus, with Diogo and Elisabeth receiving two mini water guns for the Songkran festivities. Elisabeth, sounding very cultured, gracefully told him “chong rean” instead of “chan rean” in our famous phrase explaining we’re students from Phuket. It was an intriguing experience, leading us to leave almost an hour later than expected, nevertheless grateful for the goodies that were to sustain us for the remaining journey. Contrary to the previous bus ride which was filled with conversations, a movie and a few naps interjected here and there, this bus ride was a solid 12 hours of sleep.
Our arrival in Chiang Mai was a lot more calm compared to the fast pace of Bangkok. We caught one of the local red buses to Warorot Market, where we needed to get the yellow bus to Se Meung, near where the farm was located. It was only upon arrival that we realised the yellow bus only left at 12pm, meaning we had 4 more hours to kill! We found it quite odd that there was only one bus out, but we went along our way to explore the market. The heat was silent but deadly, killing us slowly with every trickle of sweat down our spine. We found this gem of a cafe situated just outside the market, dressed with decorations from a multitude cultures and religions. We set up base there for our remaining time, sipping away at our smoothies while we read and studied, with the occasional nap. At 11.30 we left the cafe for the station, which was really just the corner of a street where the yellow truck was parked. We got on the truck, where a French couple had already been sitting. Not too long after, we were joined by an American girl, a French man and Italian man - what a diverse ride! Everyone was introduced and we figured out who had been travelling where and for how long, though the three of us were surprised at how many of them had simply quit their job to travel - a luxury indeed! While the three of us were heading for Happy Healing Home, the rest of them were heading for The Mindful Farm - the first sign that our encounter was going to be slightly out of the ordinary.
Two hours later we got to Se Meung. The yellow truck stopped, which stirred confusion as we got the impression from the truck driver, who seemed rather grumpy, that this was our stop and we were expected to hitchhike to the farm (mind you, it was 20km of mountainous roads to the farm from there!). After a number of exchanges and an attempted call between the owner of the farm and the truck driver, who refused to speak, we got back on the truck and continued the journey. We reached the farm at about 3pm, and were greeted by the wife of the couple who owned the farm with water and bananas. We sat on the raised rattan platform in the middle of this cute, communal hut where we assumed we would be cooking and having our meals for the next day. The lady said her husband and the other volunteers had left for the village about half an hour prior and should be returning shortly. 10 minutes later we heard voices, knowing we were soon to be met with company.
Keeping in mind this was a Buddhist farm, it was just our luck, or lack thereof, the one day out of the 365 days they don’t drink or do anything that could prove to be harmful to the body, they had decided to drink as it was Songkran - the Thai New Year. We refused profusely when offered, however the owner of the farm’s, Pinan Jim, insistance seemed to be turning slightly aggressive and we decided it would be safer to accept the first one politely and decline anything further. Two glasses later and we couldn’t take it anymore, yet for some bizarre reason he didn’t understand no. So Elisabeth cleverly fashioned her useful French to ask the French volunteer if he minded finishing our drink, to which the other Brazilian volunteer who could see our troubled expressions kindly offered to help. It also took every ounce of energy within us to refuse cigarettes, convincing Pinan Jim that we don’t smoke, which luckily he understood a bit more accepting than the whiskey. We were slightly disappointed because we were hoping to do a bit of work that evening and the next day, but unforeseen circumstances changed the plan.
Elisbaeth focusing intensely on learning to play the beat of a Thai song with Rachelle (right), another volunteer and Christian (top left)
Before preparing dinner together in the common area, we got the opportunity to explore the farmland and feed the chickens, learning about the different methods used to separate and calm the chickens before releasing them to interact with each other. All the volunteers along with Pinan Jim then gathered in the common area to prepare dinner. Dinner was an interesting experience. We all sat at the table, he said a short Buddhist prayer and then it was time to dig in - literally apparently. There was no cutlery, so you grabbed all the food you wanted from the dishes with your hands. It wasn’t too big a deal for me coming from a culture where eating Indian food with our hands is normal (not taking it from the serving dish though), but I can’t imagine the culture shock for the other volunteers who hadn’t eaten with their hands in their lives. We washed up and decided to call it a night, as we were to wake up at 6am the next morning for meditation and yoga. We bid the other volunteers goodnight and got our stuff to prepare ourselves for the night. All the facilities were pretty rural, the toilet was as basic as it could be and slept on the floor of a hut (which thankfully had a mosquito net). It got surprisingly cold in the wee hours of the morning, but they had given us a blanket which was good.
The next morning we were awoken by the crows of the chicken and Elisabeth’s infamous alarm. We proceeded to hike up the farm to a hut in the jungle where we stayed for an hour to do some self-guided meditation and exercise. Coming from a school where we practice meditation in relatively comfortable surroundings, I personally found it quite difficult to focus, having to constantly smack mosquitos that wouldn’t leave us alone. It was a nice breakaway though from the busyness of life in general, and to just take a step back, reflect and recollect.
After that was over we walked back to the common area, indulged in the same practice for breakfast as dinner the previous night and decided to kick-off some work before we left at 12pm (we had the choice of leaving at 6am with the yellow truck or getting to do some work and hitchhiking to the town, which was 20km away, at 12pm. We wanted to get a little bit of work in considering we didn’t get to do any the previous day, so we went with the 12pm option - plus hitchhiking would be fun!)
We got to work with their strawberry garden, plucking out the overgrown weeds. It was apparent that it hadn’t been attended to in months, as it honestly looked a mess. It was a struggle squatting down and weeding under the scorching sun, with our angry tan lines and aching calves being the victim of the pains for the next few days. We worked for about 4 hours and managed to do a pretty good job at neatening up the place. We paid for our night’s stay, bid Pinan Jim farewell and got on our way to hopefully find a ride to town so we wouldn’t have to walk for too long with our heavy bags under the sweltering sun. We were insanely lucky to have found a pickup truck driving past just as we stepped foot off the farm, who kindly allowed us to sit at the back. It was such a relaxing ride, with the breeze running through our hair as we had some interesting conversations. Our luck apparently wasn’t running out anytime soon, because the moment we arrived in Se Meung, we found a bus leaving in 10 minutes for Chiang Mai town, fantastic because it minimised our waiting time. That concluded our service trip, and we were off to Chiang Mai town to meet Sarah and celebrate Songkran.
Some pictures of us weeding the strawberry garden. There were some really grounded, rooted weeds that led to the following set of pictures of my graceful fall that Elisabeth candidly caught.
It was an opportunity I never would’ve experienced other than through this. It was enriching to learn, whatever we could, about Buddhist culture and see the sustainability and feasibility of organic farming. We of course would’ve liked to stay longer and help out more, but I think to a certain extent our abilities to say no and the ethics of our choices and actions were tested over this trip, learning where to draw the line with safety. Honestly grateful to have gotten this opportunity, and even better to have spent it with such delightful company.