Mindful Farm

I got to Chiang Mai, in Northern China, at 11pm. I had been on the train for 14 hours and I was happy to put my feet on solid ground once more.

I thought it would be a good idea to walk to the hotel. This was foolish for many reasons. Number 1: It was dark. Number 2: I had never been to this city before. Number 3: I did not know where I was going.

And so I began walking in the dark. I saw rats scurrying into the sewers under the pavement but I kept my head high and continued to walk confidently. 'What a stupid idiot you are, I mean seriously? What are you doing you idiot?' Thoughts of this nature swirled round and round my head. To be honest, I was being pretty stupid.

After 20 minutes of walking I still had no idea where I was so I flagged down a rickshaw and got on. He took me to my guesthouse (which looked exactly like a colourful prision) and charged me more than the rickshaws had asked for back at the train station. I was furious. My introduction to Chiang Mai was not a good one.

The day after I looked for the songtheaw which would take me to Mindful Farm. A songtheaw is a pick-up truck with a roof on top and its the main mode of public transport in Chiang Mai. I circled the place where they were supposed to be for a good hour before I found the right one. The driver told me to come back after an hour because he was picking up supplies for the village. It really bothered me how helpless I was because of my ignorance of the Thai language.

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The journey to the farm was horrible. The roads twisted and turned faster than I could blink and I had to sit outside on the step to avoid getting so sick. With me was a German and Japanese boy, both going to Mindful Farm. The German boy had spent 9 weeks there because he had loved it so much. He told me about a monastery close to Chiang Mai where he had spent 21 days in a silent retreat. And just like that, my second destination had been decided.

I spoke with the German boy mostly since the Japanese boy had a very limited grasp of English. It was refreshing to find someone who shared my enthusiasm about meditation and self-improvement.

Finally we got to the farm. We had to cross a very unstable bamboo bridge that creaked and groaned with every step we took, but finally we arrived.

I had no idea what to expect. After climbing a small hill we arrived to the sound of knocking and banging. A group of five volunteers were working on building a cement wall on one side of what I later learnt to be the meditation hall. There were 2 English volunteers, 2 Australian, 1 Czech, 1 Brazilian and 1 Canadian. A lot more than I had expected there to be. Naively I thought they were all as interested in meditation as I was, so I had assumed that I would get on with all of them like a house on fire. Although there was no real friction between the others and myself, I definitely did not feel the connection I had taken for granted that I would feel, purely based on the fact that these people had also ventured out to the middle of nowhere to work on a farm and meditate.

But it was interesting meeting English volunteers that were really active about self-improvement. Throughout my 15 years living in England, through school and University, I had met very few people who shared my passion for self-development. One of the volunteers had brought a small English dictionary along with them.

During my stay at the farm I built a mud-brick wall, planted some tamarind, chilli and eggplant, helped out in cooking, made soy milk and peanut butter and learnt a bit more about Buddhism. My favourite thing about the farm was the little baby girl - Nobara- daughter of the farm's owners. It's been so long since I saw and interacted with a baby and I found it fascinating watching her endless curiosity at life, her imitation of everyone around her and her boundless happiness. She is 19-months old but can not yet speak. We all wonder when she does speak, which languages she will know. Her Japanese mother speaks to her in Japanese and she is constantly hearing English around her. The Thai workers on the farm obviously speak Thai around her. One of the Russian volunteers who will have stayed at the farm for a total of 2 months speaks to her in Russian, and I spoke to her a little in Arabic. She's an incredibly intelligent girl, so we'll see what happens.



After a few days at the farm I was getting a little complacent. I'd heard rumours of a nearby farm called 'Happy Healing Home'. I wanted to visit it because I'd heard they do reiki there and I secretly thought of abandoning Mindful Farms - you know what they say, the grass is always greener!

Many days I'd think to myself, I want to see Happy Healing Home, but I'd never had enough determination to see the thought through. One day I was walking back to Mindful Farm from the local shop when a motorbike slowed up ahead of me.

'How many volunteers at Mindful Farm?', a Thai man in a vest with a shoulder-length pony tail and tattooed arms, said to me. We talked for a while and I found out that he was the owner of Happy Healing Home. On an impulse I asked him if I could see his farm and after a little hesitation (although I felt it was mock hesitation) he agreed.

I was quite terrified on the motorbike ride down to the farm because the road was very muddy, narrow and had many turns. I was contemplating what life would be like after I lost the use of my legs due to their being crushed under the weight of the motorcycle. Thankfully we made it back in one piece.

The first difference I noticed was that they had many chickens on the farm. Mindful Farm was vegetarian, so we didn't have any animals except a stray cat and dog. The second thing I noticed was how spaced out the first few volunteers I spoke to were. It seemed as though they had been smoking something or other. In Mindful Farm there is no smoking.  The owner took me into the main social area to introduce me to the rest of the volunteers. The third thing I noticed was how unbearably loud they all were. The social area appeared to be much smaller than the open plan area we had at Mindful Farm, and it had the effect of forcing those sitting in it to be very close to one another.

I knew it was not the right place for me. I sat for a good 10 minutes, smiling and pretending to enjoy the show their inflated egos were performing. After being pressured to sample some 'organic coffee' (which smelled so strong I had to seriously hold myself back from vomiting), which I declined countless times, I stood up and asked for the directions back to Mindful Farm. The owner looked offended that I wanted to leave so early, and there was some awkward tension but finally he let me go. I can not explain the elation I felt. I began to breathe easily again.

I couldn't shake the thought that I could have ended up at Happy Healing Home instead of Mindful Farm. That would have perfectly suited the pattern of my life so far. At school and University I was surrounded by loud, brash people who cared little for other cultures or ways of living that weren't there own. This had caused me to feel increasingly isolated and alien in England, which was one of the main reasons I fled as fast as I could.

I counted my blessings that I had found Mindful Farm instead, and for the rest of the day no one could wipe the smile from my face.