The Road to Pun Pun

It's possible that we could have happily spent more time in Chiang Mai. It's easy to while away an afternoon strolling the streets and checking out the goodies for sale or plopping down at a curbside cafe sipping on fresh coffee and participating in one of my new favorite activities - monk spotting! But it was time to move along. Thai cooking courses are a very popular activity for Farang visiting Thailand and prior to leaving the States, I sought out an organic farm and vegetarian cooking school located a few hours from Chiang Mai.

We email them about our visit and are informed that the cooking class isn't being offered in the slow season but we are still welcome to come and visit the farm and volunteer in the kitchen to pick up a few tips and pointers. We decide to give it a go--but first we had to find it.

The directions on the website read more like steps in a scavenger hunt. 1.  Find the Warowot market (we opted to take a sweaty walk there rather than a tuk-tuk) 2. Once at the market find the river, turn left and walk 100 meters. 3. You will see a phone booth and a parking lot, walk past the parking lot and turn left down an alley where you will find a row of white trucks 4. Skip three strides then hop twice and you will have arrived.

 In reality it is far easier than the instructions make it sound and we arrive early enough to peruse the market. This is probably the first true local food market we've seen so far on this trip, full of live eels and turtles waiting to become someone's dinner as well as some unlucky frogs on skewers. It seems everything comes on a skewer in Thailand and I have no complaints about that! We pick up some fresh rambutan and passion fruit as well as a few fried bananas before we hop on the truck.

As with most businesses and modes of transport in this part of the world our truck was dual purpose. In addition to carrying us and a few Thai women, our truck also acts as a supply transport making several stops to unload various goods (bicycle and motorbike tires, cases of condensed milk, potted trees) to small villages and homes along the way.

Our ride ends about two hours later on the side of a dusty road. The driver motions us toward a muddy path that puts our balance to the test. We traverse rice paddies and makeshift bridges and feel pretty good about our successes thus far, but when we arrive at the farm there was no one in sight.  We knew that Krit, the man we emailed, would be in Chiang Mai until the next day but were told that other members of the community would be expecting our arrival. We ditch our bags at what looks like the main dining building and go for a walk around the grounds hoping to encounter someone.

All of the buildings are earthen structures, made of some combination of raw wood, bamboo, mud and clay and are in varying states of upkeep.  The paths are a bit overgrown and everything looks slightly neglected.  We poke around a bit and having still encountered no one head back to where we stashed our bags.  Out pops a head with long hair and a longer beard from the previously unnoticed 2nd floor of the main building. His name is Botash and he is from Hungary. He speaks English well and we ask him some questions about the farm but he seems to have about as much info as well do.  We sit with him for a while lounging about and reading a bit, waiting for anyone else to arrive.

The famous Botash.

Bamboo fixin'

Eventually some women and a young man come around. No one speaks more than a few words in English. A young kid leads us to a small earthen structure a short walk from the main building but we are given no more instruction.  We wander back to the kitchen and find a group of women preparing fresh bamboo shoots.  We stand around for a while watching and trying to communicate that we want to help.   Eventually we either picked up a shoot or were given a shoot to peel.  The process is like this: Young bamboo shoots are picked when they are about 6" long, the tough base is trimmed and then the outer sheaths of the shoot are peeled away until the green part is all stripped and nothing but a long thin white cone remains. We help peel bags of them and then wait for the next step. But there is no next step. Finally we are told to go take showers and return at 6 for dinner. 

It's more like 7:30 when dinner is served. Botash, Mike and I eat and chat while the sun sets and then creep very carefully back to our hut as I'm terrified I'll step on a poisonous snake.  Our hut is filled with critters but mostly just lizards and we are more or less become accustomed to them by this point.  Despite the confusing day we were still quite content to be under our mosquito net with the jungle sounds lulling us to sleep.

Our humble abode.

We meet Botash for breakfast around 8 and try to milk him for more info on the farm's daily activities in Krit's absense. Mostly he just said he helps planting rice every day from 9-12 and that's about it. With that said, he departs to go do just that, leaving us to try and figure out what to do. We try again to approach the ladies about working in the kitchen and were told, 'nothing to learn.' With the whole day in front of us we decide to get geared up to hit the rice paddies as that seems to be where all the action is. I find a safari hat with a neck flap and Mike ends up with a very large and very Mexican looking sombrero (sorry we have no photographic evidence of this). We head down to the paddies and quickly find that rubber boots are useless and get stuck with every step.  So there we are, barefoot and calf deep in mud planting rice transplants with a Hungarian and a bunch of Thais. We slosh around for a while, bent at the waist with sun on our backs and the mud squishing between our toes which seems to help regulate the brutal Thai heat.

If you were ever curious about how rice is planted it goes like this.  Rice is started from seed and when the rice plants are about 6-8" in height they are gathered and bundled together into a little bunch about 4 inches in diameter.  These bunches are brought to the rice paddy where they are transplanted into the mud. They are seemingly planted at whatever distance and spacing you want.  We tried to figure out some sort of standardization but realized that when you've got at least 3 or 4 people working on one square paddy with everyone starting at different places the spacing will inevitably not line up. You grab about 3-4 transplants in your hand and push them down into the mud about 2-3 inches being careful not to snap them.  And repeat. It goes rather quickly since there is not need to dig holes or make orderly rows and the mud is super soft and malleable.

When we've all finished planting we take a walk with Botash to a neighboring community called the Panya Project.  They are bustling with activity and were finishing up a permaculture certification course, something Mike and I might have been interested in doing if we had found out about it sooner. At dinner that evening we have a chance to chat with Krit who has returned from Chiang Mai.  He gives us some insight on how the growing season works in Thailand and about the current action on the farm.  It seems like this time of year it is all rice all the time and although we enjoyed our experience today we didn't feel like doing it again tomorrow...and the next day. So we decide to arrange a motorcycle and sidecar taxi for the morning and make our way to the small hippy enclave of Pai.