What's so good about Chaiyaphum anyway?

More photos can be found here.

The sun is about to rise.

 That question was asked by a friend when she knew that I was going there again this month.  And I found myself wondering about it too.  I have been there for four times since December 2009.  The activities I did there were unintentionally different each time.  I guess that's what makes it interesting.

Of course, I went to Wat Pa Sukato as a retreat, a get-away-from-it-all, but I didn't really need to drive 700 km if that were the sole reason.  Though I don't think I could live there indefinitely, I like the lifestyle I have there.  I don't get to be bossy and pampered like when I'm in Bangkok.  I walk everywhere.  I do manual work in the kitchen or help nuns collecting vegetables or fixing some stuff.  I don't touch a notebook computer (as a result, my right upper back was not sore at all).  I barely use a cell phone.  I don't order my staff or my students to do this and that.  I don't have to any planning.  In short, I put my brain on a break while I'm there.

On the mission to collect bamboo shoots

Not only the simple lifestyle that attracts me, but I also like the fact that I need to rely on other people at Sukato.  This time when I went, there were so many visitors that my earlier assigned kuti took up 6 women, me included.   I didn't think one toilet cum bath could accommodate us in a timely manner so I asked Nun Thong-You (pictured with a hat in the photo) if she could let me stay in her kuti.  (Almost all nuns and monks have their own kutis).  I don't generally ask people for favor if I could avoid.  And I find having to depend on other people's mercy helps reducing my ego.  I am such a snob that I'd rather pay my way than having to owe it to others.  But of course, I can't really rent a room at a monastery so I must ask.

Luangpor Khamkhien who makes such a lovely place possible.

Another unusual thing that I did there this time was to help my host fixing her inside wall.  Because my family have our own maintenance guys for our apartments, I don't normally get to do any of these works; I just tell my staff to fix it for me and ASAP too.  (In fact, in Bangkok, I don't do any household chores: no cooking, cleaning or washing.)  But over there, I got to use a hammer and a saw.  I felt like I was being on a Habitat-for-Humanity mission... 

I guess largely I'm a masochist but I just want to be self assured that I'd survive without the comfort that my dad's money has provided.  Not only that, I often run into interesting new people at Sukato.  Or even with people that I have already known, I really do enjoy their company and feel like returning home every time I go there.  It is quite a luxury to have a country home, I find.