Thailand, Farm #1 – Baanrai Farmstay Suan Phueng

Where: Suan Phueng (or sometimes also spelt as Suan Phung), a district in the western part of Ratchaburi Province, central Thailand.

Who: Arnon and his family whose members includes his 2 sisters, a brother and a brother-in-law.

What: Pretty much an animal farm although they do grow some vegetables.

Volunteering hours: 6-7hours depending on what is required for the day. One off day a week.

We arrived at Baanrai Farmstay on a late Monday night, roughly around 9/10pm. The minivan journey from Bangkok took about 3-4 hours depending on the driver and because it was so late, there were practically no lights along the roads at all other than that from the minivan’s headlight. It was nothing short of terrifying and even though phangandhuang know basic conversational thai, it was difficult for us to let the driver know where we were heading to since the address was in english. Scenarios of phangandhuang being sold off to brothels as sex slaves or thrown into a river flashed across our minds as we silently prayed for safety. Thankfully we managed to get Arnon on the phone so he could convey to the driver where exactly we were supposed to go and soon enough we reached our destination!

Our accommodation for 8 nights

With a open shower to boot!

Here’s what the daily chores are like:

6.30am-8am:

Take the horses out to graze

Cut grass

Feed grass to sheep

Clean sheep pen

Clean horse pen

8am-9am:

Breakfast

9am-12pm:

Bathe sheep

Clean animal pen (refer to above)

Random carpentry chores (built a grass pen for the sheep so the grass wouldn’t be everywhere)

 

12pm-1pm:

Lunch

1pm-3pm:

Rest/ nap time (or animal play time for us)

Tooky, who always follows phang around.

Gypsy, the pregnant sheep who’s super affectionate.

Arnon’s security patrol on the farm that phang loves.

Bambi, one of the two lambs around.

3pm-6pm:

Chase sheep to outdoor pen for grazing

Random planting of vegetables

Teach at local village school

6-7pm:

Dinner

7pm onwards:

Free time/ Bed time

To be 100% honest, we were rather skeptical during the first few days. Arnon seemed to be perpetually high/ having a hangover (which he was perfectly honest about it, telling us he had to rest because of a hangover) plus he had some horse medicine drip that he was using for himself. Putting that aside and after hearing his past of him saving the Dusky Langurs plus looking at how he lives in a wooden hut built by himself while the rest of his family lives in nice concrete houses, he’s really quite an amazing guy. He always made sure we had enough to eat and weren’t overly worked out, giving us ample breaks in between tough chores and totally treated us like family. Once he even brought us to a neighbour’s party celebrating his son’s initiation into being a monk the next day.

Arnon using the old school fishing net to catch a fish for dinner and the massive fish he caught.

 

Monk initiation ceremony and look at the number of tables, it’s like a wedding.

Arnon being his whimsical self, saying that the cat needs to go sheep riding.

Getting there:
Head to Victory Monument via BTS or taxi and look out for Century the Movie Plaza which is roughly about 5-10mins walk from the BTS station. On the left side of Century the Movie Plaza, you’ll see a row of minivan companies selling tickets to various destinations outside of Bangkok. Walk all the way in and look out for this company called Jan Jhao (pronounced as 展昭) with the logo of a Crescent Moon. It shouldn’t cost you more than 250baht per person.

Note: The previous website that Arnon had doesn’t seem to be loading and his FB pages haven’t been updated since forever, but if you’re interested in volunteering there, you can email him at info@baanraifarmstay.com