Every year there is an amazing temple pilgrimage happening in Chiang Mai, Thailand. This year, in 2010, it happened in late May. The goal is to walk up to Doi Suthep temple, which is the most venerated shrine in Chiang Mai. The challenge is that this temple is not in the city, but way up a steep mountain, 14 kilometers (9 miles) from the outskirts of the city.

Thais are not really much  into exercising in general, but on this day tens of thousands of people stream up the mountain – in the middle of the night! Daytime temperatures would almost certainly result in heat stroke for many participants, so people start walking in the evening when it is cooler.

Thais love to party and they have a real talent when it comes to organizing festivities. All the way up the long mountain road volunteers pass out thousands of free water bottles to prevent dehydration. There is free food for everyone too. Read the rest of this entry

The 15 year old daughter of a Thai friend of mine had basic English lessons in a school in Thailand for five years, and she is not able to say a single sentence in English. How is this possible? I took her under my wings and started talking with her and had her say words and sentences in English. Within a few weeks she could carry on a simple conversation in English. What happened here?

Imagine sitting in a classroom where the teacher is talking at you constantly. Culturally it is considered inappropriate to ask questions,  come up with creative ideas or suggestions, and there is no active, lively exchange between teachers and students. It is a one way lecturing style of education. Read the rest of this entry

Nowadays there are several hundred massage styles, including several Thai massage ones. A hundred years ago massage was not so popular and widespread in the west. Compared to today, there were very few massage styles. In the last few decades many styles of massage, bodywork, physical therapy, yoga and energy healing were developed. What makes them authentic?

Let’s look at how such styles develop.

1. Someone keeps developing an existing system and turns it into something new. For example Swedish massage, deep tissue massage and sports massage are clearly related.

2.  Someone has a good insight and comes up with a truly novel approach. An example would be Trager or Feldenkrais.

3. Someone studies several systems and combines them into a new style. An example would be Thai Massage combined with elements from Shiatsu and Tui Na.

4. Someone modifies an existing system and gives it a new name. An example would be Thai massage and Thai Yoga Massage. Read the rest of this entry

Thailand is a hot country. Not all tropical areas are hot. You might be at the equator, but if you are high enough in the mountains, the weather can be very pleasant. But closer to sea level, it can get mighty hot in the tropics.

This year we have unusually hot weather in Thailand in May. Thais don’t bake their food, so there are hardly any ovens in Thailand, but these days just being outside feels like being in an oven. The sun is cooking you mercilessly. That is no big deal if you live in an airconditioned house and drive an airconditioned car. But airconditioning is far from being standard equipment in Thai homes, and small motorbikes are the transportation of choice, or rather necessity, for many millions of Thais. Read the rest of this entry

How to communicate effectively with your Thai partner.

Say you found a girlfriend or prospective wife in Thailand. You live together and get to know each other. In almost all cases your English will be much better than hers which makes communication easier for you.  Here is a checklist of things you should not assume:

1. Don’t assume your partner understands you just because she smiles at you as if she understands you. Thais rarely if ever say that they don’t understand you. They will nod and smile even if they have no idea what you are saying.

Solution: Ask your partner what percentage she understands of what you are saying. Ask her if she understands 40 percent or 60 percent etc. You might be amazed to find out how much she has been missing. Ask her what you can do so that she understands more. It might be that you speak too fast and need to slow down. It might be that you use difficult words which you need to replace with simpler ones. It might be that you have to eliminate the use of difficult tenses, like “It would have been better….”, or “If you would have gone to….” Read the rest of this entry

Thailand is known for a great variety of delicious tropical fruits, and when you go to a Thai market, they are bursting with piles of colorful fruits and vegetables. But few vegetarians, if any, live off fruits alone. There is such a thing as a fruitarian, but it is way out on the extreme side of vegetarianism, and very few people try to follow this for an extended period of time.

Are all vegetarians health conscious?

The availability of produce in Thailand is definitely a plus for vegetarians. However there is another side to the story. Although most people think that all vegetarians are extremely health conscious, this is not necessarily so. India is one good example. There are many millions of vegetarians in India, but there is lots of white sugar, white rice, heavy milk products and sweets, and deep fried food in their diet. And many of the Indian vegetarians are seriously overweight. Read the rest of this entry

Here comes our newly arrived Thai massage student to study with a well known master in Thailand. To his shock and dismay, the teacher keeps on smoking one cigarette after the other while he is teaching.

He goes to another famous healer/teacher and finds out that he does not smoke, but his personal life is a mess, and he has lots of girlfriend trouble.

Again another well known teacher has an overgrown ego. These are not examples which I just made up, but eleven years ago I was this newly arrived Thai massage student in Thailand, and I did study with those teachers.

Life is seldom how we think it should be. Our ideal perception of a healer is a calm, spiritual, modest, kind person, ideally a vegetarian, meditator, non drinker and non smoker. A saint in other words. Should the healing skills of the master not translate into every part of his life, shouldn’t there be a congruency between all aspects of his life? Logic tells us that it should be so, but life tells us otherwise. Read the rest of this entry

When we think about Thailand, what comes to mind is probably beaches, exotic places, sightseeing, and maybe even Thai massage. But this healing miracle has nothing to do with any of the above.

All cultures in the world have some system of healing. People have always had problems with their bodies due to disease, injuries or accidents, and that will never change. Healers of some kind have always been a necessity for any society. Such healing systems range from shamanic approaches to modern medicine with innumerable varieties in between.

Even in western societies which have officially subscribed to modern medicine as the only healing system, there is a huge subculture of alternative approaches.  Older traditional cultures have relied on such methods for thousands of years since there were no other means available. Read the rest of this entry

During more than a decade of practicing and teaching Thai massage, I have learned a lot about the magic of touch. I know it is there, I have seen it, felt it and experienced it, and I don’t need proof other than my experience.

I am writing this from my perspective of living in Thailand where people are less intellectually inclined and much less obsessed with scientific proof for everything. I am not claiming to be right – I am only offering a perspective from an angle that diverges from western thinking.

There are lots of articles and studies that all try prove the validity and the benefits of massage and touch. It is a bizarre western phenomenon to demand that everything needs to be proven to the satisfaction of the scientific community. Read the rest of this entry

In the western world you don’t dare asking a woman how old she is. It is considered rude and intrusive, and many western women will flat out refuse to tell you their age. The idea is that aging is a bad thing for a woman and should be hidden as much as possible. Being secretive about age and even lying about it is considered acceptable.

So here comes our first time Thailand visitor, a woman for our story, and she is taken aback since people regularly ask her how old she is. Why are they so nosy in Thailand? Why do they pry into such intimate subjects?

Little does our traveler know that age has a very different meaning in Thailand than in the west.  Rather than being something to be avoided, it is actually necessary to know people’s age in order to have proper social interactions. Read the rest of this entry