aWay

29 Dec, 2013

At last, 2 days before the start, we found Szilvi who will take good care of Borisz and our home...Szilvi, make yourself at home, please:)

30 Dec, 2013

Setting off from Budapest at 11:30. Timke, thanks for the goodbye-coffee and the short but much needed therapy:)

	A few hours later: Helsinki Airport, Relaxation Room
	The Finnair flight was more satisfying than we excepted. Walking on parquet at the airport - quite unusual. There's a book exchange, too.

31 Dec, 2013

Flying from BKK to Chiang Mai with Bangkok Airway.

The ticket was an easy buy the previous day for THB 2250 (around EUR 50) for the two of us.

Countdown to 2014 in Chiang Mai, Tha Pae Gate.

Thousands of lanterns  flying to the stars next year, when they're collected as waste - including our little 30-baht fighter. Let all our worries fly away with it and bring good luck to everyone!

01 Jan, 2014

Instructions for getting to 3H

We're heading to Happy Healing Home, near Pang Turm village in the mountains, north-east of Chiang Mai.

The journey takes about 3 hours with a little yellow pickup, so called minibus.

The baby was silent all the way. We wonder if all Thai babies are so peaceful..:)

A day in 3H

We wake up before sunrise with the roosters. Darkness is slowly turning to a misty morning while volunteers are doing yoga, meditation or just preparing coffee and trying to warm up by the fire after a chilly night.

 We're accommodated in simple bamboo huts (actually, ours is more like a residence size-wise), while the kitchen with the dining area is the centre of the community life.

Work starts before 7 AM in the garden – the landscape still covered by mist – and continues till Jim rings the bell which marks the time for breakfast.


Meals, three per day, are prepared together. Our hosts, Jim and Tea are the head chefs; every day brings a new recipe. Our picks: green papaya salad, cassava curry, pumpkin soup with lemon basil and various chili pastes, one with roasted peanuts, sticky rice with banana and topped with roasted sesame seeds. Sticky rice is the base of each and every meal (see how-to-make video later), not to mention the variety of fresh herbs and leaves from the garden and the forest (you wouldn't believe how many edible greens you can find on the bushes and trees). Volunteers can and do participate in picking the ingredients from the garden, making fire, chopping vegetables, cooking, setting up the tables and washing dishes after meals.

  

After breakfast most of us return to the garden and continue working with the soil, seeds, plants and trees.

 

Others work on building the new kitchen area, some help with the lunch preparations.

As coffee plays an important role – also in keeping volunteers' eyes open –, one can join the long procedure of making it.

It involves picking, drying, peeling,.....

roasting, grinding, and finally: enjoying it!

The small black Asian pigs welcome

everything you drop in front of them.
The ducks bathe in small ponds,
sharing the garden with chickens and
Jim's fighting roosters.

The roosters are told to be very valuable, Jim treats them accordingly, feeding them three times a day.

By lunchtime, it is hot enough to stop all of us from working in the garden, so we spend our time doing other activities.

Water comes from the mountain, fresh and cold, drinkable. Our pocket solar shower proved to be very useful – something we don't regret putting into the backpacks.

The evening meals will gather people again, Jim plays the guitar if he feels like it, and we stay to talk and then meditate for some time.

Frogs start their concert as we go to sleep...