Traveling to Thailand during winter session of 2015 was my first time overseas. Everything was new and exciting and I didn’t know what to expect. Our group went to two different farms and multiple markets over the two week period. The first farm we stayed at was called Pun Pun which mean “a thousand varieties”. Pun Pun is located an hour north of Chiang Mai, in Norther Thailand. It is an intentional community of about twenty people. Peggy and Joe started the farm ten years ago. When they bought the land it was all cleared and nothing was growing there. They started with banana tress and after two years they were able to get fruit and other things were able to thrive around the banana trees. Pun Pun is a very sustainable, everything there is used. Throughout our week stay at Pun Pun we leaned so much. We leaned how to make compost, built an adobe house out of mud, made kambucha, made garden beds, cooked, went fishing, did yoga, weeded and watered plants, leaned about fermentation, and leaned about Thai culture.

Composting squat toilets

 Making compost in a basket, with layers of chicken poop, food scraps and hay. It then needs to be waters and will be ready in two months.

 Hand fishing with a net

The second farm we visited was Payong’s Farm. Payong lives a couple hours from Bangkok. His farm is small and is just for his family. We hoed out the dragon fruit and banana patches and also planted lettuce, we leaned how to plant parachute rice, and Payon’s wife Jane taught us how to make lip balm! Payong’s family was very welcoming to us. paying had grown up in a small village and went to Thammasat University in Bangkok, after getting a degree he decided to move back to his village and work with Karen people. Karen people are the indigenous people of Thailand, they are working with Payong and leaning how to farm and use CSA’s.

      Parachute rice planting