phayakkhaphum phisai

We have been uploading pictures and showing you what we have been up to at Samuel's House but have not actually tell you much about this place. Here it goes...

Phayakkhaphum Phisai is a little town in Mahasarakham Province, which is 5-6 hours Northeast of Bangkok. I must say Phayak (shorten name by locals) has changed and improved a fair bit since we first visited in Dec 2006. Now you can find a 7-Eleven in town! We are in Phayak as Samuel's House Children Home is located here, just a few kms from the Phayak town. We have been involved with the operation of Samuel's House since early 2007, together with our two dear friends, Shaun and Caroline. For those interested to find out more about Samuel's House, please visit www.samuelshouse.com.

It's the start of their summer season as well as the raining season here. Trust me...it's hot and humid. In the day, it is always very hot followed by a thunderstorm in the late afternoon. The rain does help to cool the place but it is still hot plus humid. We could hardly sleep at night for the first week. We removed the mattress after 2 nights, hoping that sleeping on tiles will help. It is cooler on the tiles but after a few nights of sleeping on the tiles, our backs and bones were hurting so we went back to the mattress. Thank God that the temperature at night has dropped a little these few days (still about 29 C). On some very hot days. we will escape to 7 Eleven (air- 

conditioned) to get a Slurpee.

There is a fresh market every morning, with heaps of stalls selling fresh vegetable, meat (non-refrigerated), fish and others. Pork is the cheapest meat so it is commonly eaten. Chicken over here is quite skinny unlike the ones in Cusco and it's expensive too. There are also many street stalls selling fruits and street food throughout the day. Rambutans are the seasonal fruit at the moment and there are truckloads of it everywhere. It's going at 10-15B (A$0.33-A$0.50) per kg (it is A$12 for 0.5kg or A$1 for 1 in Australia!!!!!). There are durians and mangosteens on sale too but not as much as rambutans.

As for drinking water, we have rain water which is treated with UV before we drink. We don't seem to have a problem with the food hygiene over here as compared to Cusco. We have been eating raw vegetables. They eat lots of sticky rice and som tam (green papaya salad) which we enjoy. It's very kind of them to make less spicy som tam for us (still spicy but not as spicy as the ones they eat). They like to serve exotic insects too which we politely decline but the kids love them!