whole island place'n story Since that amazing moment of discovery of the really priceless semi-wild Cacao trees at the NakhonSi mainland nearby, our life went to the absolutely new direction - to the exploring of rare trees, depicted in ancient texts and worshiped times ago by ancestors (druids!). Our excitement had reach the new level, when we found on koh Phangan auspicious trees of Rudraksha. From that day we see our main goal and Big Mission as "To explore and care the remaining trees of Rudraksha, collecting the seeds to share them, and to discover and plant new Rudraksha trees in other areas". We have too much interesting news to share in any of that points, so here I going mostly to post some photos & links.  best of island's Rudrakshas Rudraksha life - multilingual
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Its gonna be quick post, as I'm busy with Tree Owners Club, holy trees & plants on Koh Phangan and possibility of translation of our new Rudraksha Life. Changes-changes all the way, but some areas still hard and slowly accept the development, this is Haad Yao beach of the east side of the island. Years-years ago, in a times of party-boom, few attempts to arrange one were failed due to the heavy rains and strong winds. Couple of resorts on a rock (Than Prapard) and behind (Kung Bungalow) not far from Haad Yao also disappears now,as their owners moved to live closer to the town. Then it was a time of something new, and "Lost Paradise" bungalow represents that era - simple bamboo bungalows next to the beach, with electricity few hours/daily from generator - real paradise don't require much. Before the sunrise "Aha, I'm now in Baan Tai, and this is a South of koh Phangan, each sunset here is spectacular. But to meet the Sunrise better to move myself to the nearest mountain" - with this idea I found myself at Haad Rin Nok - between the Full-Moons its usually almost no-one here - that's how big party once a month protects this magic place the rest of time.  scenes from AFTER-LIFE at Wat Samai Kongka Common theory is that we're immortal and will never dye, continue our everyday activities forever. But there are some who still think different - that people are mortal, the length of life is unknown and the path will not ends even with death. To show what will happens with some of us artists at Wat Samai Kongka created that demo - "scenes from the hell". This is more like a photo-story...This was a place where time ago my friends invited me to work - I arrived and next morning saw the beauty of the island. Sleepy beach with low water level half of the year, lazy dogs on the beach and rich vivid colors of Moon & stars every night, atmosphere of relax & chill. Place was empty, but well-known - Princess Beatrice was staying here little bit before us. Our team was a party-gang, and the loud tech-parties was our almost-nightly event. Party-goers from all around the island coming to join, and its lasts quite for a while... What is all about? - in a genre of real story here gonna be idea of public-owned "Phangan's special" place as a community center which otherwise soon will be sold and closed for public entry. Following the way of this tale, what is also part of my life, I'm looking to try a new effective forms in "saving common values". What's on today? - 6 cheap bungalows, reception space with common kitchen and terrace on more than 1 Rai = 1600 sq.m. of koh Phangan surface below the temple, from where we hearing the pre-sunrise bells. THE BEGINNING - WILD ART TEA HOUSE in khao tam area of baan tai The story begins years ago, when I was dreaming to create an open air tea house and found the perfect place for that - picturesque concrete ruins with charming views on sea & greenery around, in the area below Wat Khao Tam - internationally known today for its silence sessions. Great man - friend, who has a resort nearby told me: "No one heard from the owner for years, even the owner of abandoned building next to it. So sure, it's the best place for a Meridian tea-house. Together we'll launch it quick!" I met our first artists - The Alien Sisters, who awesomly painted half of Haad Rin, including the legendary "Mellow Mountain". So that night I was going to "Jungle Experience" to make an appointment at our space and start to create huge wall-sized artwork - it's supposed to be the root-scene, a meeting in ancient China, which changed the whole wheel of human history while at the same time changing nothing - pre-birth of Tea, Zen and Shaolin temple - Bodhidharma, sitting with a shoe on his head meeting the great Emperor Wu of Liang. It was the moment of our first meeting with Kris - together with 20 kg of tea & tea-ware she arrived to Phangan just days before from the most beautiful and largest tea house in the world; that night she was preparing tea for the our common friends on a way to the "Jungle" - somebody was complaining that he sobered up after a few cups of Chen Puerh. The meeting with Kris that night changed ALL and predefined the following chapters of story.  "Love around us" kind of sign Natik At that time we were just few friends & partners, including Natik - a very strong, beautiful and inspired big person, who also loves tea, preferring Chu Puerh with Syberian herb. Things and jobs which are taking weeks for others Natik could do in hours and minutes. So soon the first tea in a natural surrounding should be served. Natik is an extremely strong player in table hockey - he even has a page on Russian with his rating. This hero made electricity and lights, ropes around the area, ordered and improved furniture and made many of other things.  view behind me while I'm typing this phangan repsOur local helping force is Shine & Ja - the beautiful owners of resort next door. Shine made us a lot, preferring things which are barely possible - acess to each of places, toilet, wooden details for the interior and lots of other decorative touches. He also the Big story teller, who's keeping his stories for the perfect time, place and company.  blue sky in cup of Shu Puerh tea beyond the tree branch & cloud, surrounded by cacao & mucuna prueris beans tea house-1 With this support our first tea house was opened and people starts to come, drink and learn the main kinds of Chinese teas - in a centre of Baan Tai on Phangan Island our first tea stock included various Chu & Chen Puerh, Oolong, roasted Oolong & Gaba, Te Guanin, Da Hong Pao, Longjing, Taiping Houkui and herbs for add or make herbal drinks, as we learned more about the plants for the hot water and its benefits for us. Also few yogis comes sometimes to do the yoga.  moving nearby The owner of building soon arrived - first time after many years of absence, and looks positively surprised. He found time and money to complete the house of his dream and swiftly started to built it to freeze it later again - now its beautiful; also deserted, but not like at that time of very beginning. Tea house-2 And our nomad company moved to the building right next door - to the place even higher, where we were staying even less - our tea dog Bombay* couldn't climb there and people staying at upper house didn't like it too - from every evening til late at night (we just discovered how cool is to sit under the Moon) different people climbing up and down in a front of their balcony. We didn't had stairs to 3-d floor, where was a tea space, what is also stopped some of our friends from visiting us. Looking around from the top of the terrace, we saw the Big Stone and loved him. big ston -TEA HOUSE-3 Big Stone was belongs to Shine & Ja, so there was no danger from 3-d party. Also there was place for the fire in front and tree blossoming with 2 kinds of different flowers at same time behind our place at the top. It was next step for us closer to nature - we could make a water on fire and tried all waters with various teas, what we could get. It was a time of deeper diving into tje tea action, hovewer something "steel" still existed between me as a newbie-tea-master and the Source. So me with Kris decided to leave and travel, others has got similar idea and tea parties was paused for years.
news from time before we return Soon from that time, due to the personal circumstances our friends should sale the Big Stone, together with 2 houses below, and Shine left for long time the island. Now one of the biggest villas on Phangan hurrying-up to completion there - right on our Big Stone, and maybe it will be offered for rent throw Dozen Villas (in case in owner wants to rent it we have a common contacts). Other news were that our other common friends built the large spacious terrace under 2 trees at reception of remaining 6 bungalows, which is perfectly suits the purpose of new Phangan Tea Center - with new knowledges and meetings our itea dea got more global and interesting! Also we founded Kalos Fund - UK-based non-profit foundation to optimize and run all our current art, Eco and creative-marketing activities, which supposed to promote Center of Tea Culture on Phangan.  Looking heaven in cup of puerh at Phangan Tea House birth of tea travel One of the reasons we left the island was to complete our it-project - built our own hotel booking engine, which should be easy in use enough for small hotels, who don't has dedicated staff, and requires low speed of internet. We made it and started to play with new actual travel niches, when the idea of Tea Travel appears as a light in the darkness - 1) accommodation place with clean water from nature = also clean air + 2) area on nature to enjoy the tea and run tea parties and ceremonies +3) collection of best teas for that place - now its optional, and most of the tea-places don't have it yet.
Other news comes from the north of Thailand - our new friends found plantations of tea trees, as well as wild ancient trees - some of tea trees there 300, 500 and even older than 1000 years old. Learned for long years in mountain temples of China how to collect, ferment, roast and press the tea, now he sending us best-iever-try Chen & Chu Pu-erh, and also from time to time Oolongs, Assam and others. What makes us tea-lovers incredible happy! Mostly its made from Thai tea tree leaves. Mostly because there are also Burmese unknown treasures - wild-wild jungle very old tea trees - peobably alive deserted remains of powerful ancient empire. And Phongsali - fascinating and unique area of Lao. Together they're creates geo Tea Triangle.  blossoming big tree above our tea table NEW HORIZONS - KHAOTAM art'n eco COMMUNITY CENTER While we love to continue our Tea journey, there are many other things start to happens on our tea-jungle-arena.
photo-stock: bungalows of the center |
notes, legends, tales...Koh Phangan has many of that places, some of them will be here. From Ru - 1behind Tea Travel, Property Art, PhotoStay & 12 with live engine Archives
October 2018
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