To be Fair

In Sisa Asoke, I stayed with an "understudy" nun Sam. She speaks no English and I speak no Thai. We communicated through hand gesture, smiles, and even sometimes hand-sketched pictures. A lot of time, Semana Lak acted as the translator.

However on the third morning, As I walked down the stairs, I noticed an English Thai dictionary that she borrowed from the Asoke library. The first thing she said to me was if I needed hot water for bath. "Nuang ? Cold ?" she asked me with concern. The first three days I was there, temperature rarely rose above 15C before noon. I took my bath at 3pm when the sun was bright and hot. The rest of the villagers do boil water for bath when it is late. Sunset at 6pm and the weather could get very cold very fast.

I am priviledged that Sam took me in with her. Her little cottage, measured 18 ft x 12 ft is named the "Firefly" hut, built by Semana Lak and his followers about 12 years ago. Since there is no hot water, no mattress and a very basic bathroom facilities, so folks, bring your own towel if you come to stay at Sisa Asoke. There is running tap water from the huge storage tanks of water reserves within the village

Like all villagers I sleep on hard wooden floor while cold wind from the Cambodian border came knocking loudly on the wooden window panes and roof, sending its chills through the wooden walls. Good thing I borrowed a sleeping bag from Life-Trekker and insulated myself excessively with wool socks and thermal underwear. As I stared at the room in the dark of the night, it brought back memory of my grandma's house at the Sam-Chung Village Batu Pahat a long long time ago.