Where We Are In South East Asia

Maw Hom is assisted by her husband, Christopher Woodman–you can click on his name for a bit more about him. He’s fascinated by the local Thai community, and if you ask him will lead you into it anytime, on foot or by bicycle–the river, the rice paddies, the ruins, wats, sacred groves, graveyards & spirit houses. This is what Christopher says about Katja’s photo above: “The rice is most beautiful in the monsoon light like this. It rains extremely hard from June through October for 20 minutes or so everyday, then the sun comes out with rainbows that arc across the sky — and you can see all the way to the Burmese mountains, the air is so clear and fresh much of the time. The kapok tree in the center of the photo is one of my favorites. It loses all its leaves in the dry season in February, like so many tropical trees, then bursts into bright red flowers a few weeks later when it looks most dead. The petals are gathered up everywhere and dried to make kaeng khae, the delicious spicy noodles everybody so loves. Then a few months later the green fruit-pods split open and the ground is covered in kapok as white as snow — all our Baanhom mattresses are filled with it. But be careful of the thorny knobs on the trunk of this tree — according to Thai legend, the unfaithful must shinny up and down it naked forever and ever in hell!”