Village Life in Thailand - Breakfast + Massage in 100 Year Old Wooden House!

hey everyone hope you're having an amazing day it's mark wiens i am in a small village which is called ban natan in the province of nakampanom in the very north eastern corner region of thailand and issan this village is just one or two kilometers from the mekong river and this village offers all sorts of cultural learning opportunities and activities and so in this video i'm going to walk you through our homestay uh give you a tour of the room that we're staying at we're staying with an amazing grandmother and then also we've been here for two days i'll kind of show you some of the activities we have this amazing salt local salt spa massage they're also known for making handmade knives but first let's go take a quick tour of the house and our room oh and here comes grandma right now [Music] you'll know you're here marked by a coconut tree at the front and a wonderful thai flag at the front as well and it's just so peaceful you'll see that the house is on stilts and that has to do with water flooding but also staying above the ground for animals for even keeping the air flow so it has so many purposes to be on stilts to be above the ground and welcome to the main part of the house this is kind of the gathering area i guess in formal housing terms it could be considered the living room and the dining room and the social gathering room all together in one room but this is where you hang out this is where you eat your meals this is where you uh spend time with friends and family she's 84 years old and her grandfather built this house so that i think it might even be older than 100 years maybe 150 years wow when you're one of the things that you'll immediately notice is when you walk when you step the wood is so unbelievably smooth on your feet like if you are in socks you can't even wear socks or you'll just slide and slip i think there's two just two bedrooms in this house this is grandma's room and you can see her her bed in her room very traditional old style just a straight wooden bed i think there's no mattress the bed part is made from bamboo so it has a little bit of a bounce to it a little bit of a spring to it and then our bedroom is over on this side again just everything made from wood from the doors to the shingle panels to the floor this is the main bed where ying and i have been sleeping and then micah has a little bed right here in the corner oh yes bed is a little bit on the harder harder side the harder style bed uh but i like it it's great for the back sleeping here the fresh air coming through the window we've been sleeping well that fresh air off the mekong river is fantastic [Music] there's two kitchens the indoor kitchen well semi-indoor kitchen and the fully outdoor fire kitchen we'll just quickly step inside to the indoor kitchen first and watch your head i've already hit my head on here like 12 times you know that you're in isaan when you have sticky rice baskets all around the house or in lao she has a rice cooker the blender this is the fridge here's all the pots and pans and plates that we've been eating off as we've been having some community gatherings and lots of meals together yes here's another essential tool in the isan kitchen which is a big board which is used for kneading the fresh sticky rice before you put it into the basket there's a sticky rice steamer basket buckets of sticky rice and then yes there it is this is the most essential ingredient of the isaan culinary kitchen uh known as badak or also known as pala which is the fermented fish sauce that is the king of all ingredients in isan it makes isaan food what it is stepping into the outdoor kitchen section which also leads to the bathroom but the simple outdoor kitchen is my favorite part of any house uh because this is where the fire goes down cooking with charcoal and just cooking out here sitting by the fire when it's cold uh is just it's my favorite part of any house most of the time you just kind of sit on these little stools here and then finally the last part of the home that we're staying in is the bathroom and so the toilet is right here in the center it's uh there's no flush so you just use water to pour down so when you need to flush the toilet you grab a pail of water like that there's two types of shower options you can use the bucket method where you just douse yourself and i do that a couple nights but wow that water is cold right now uh but chiva does have a water heater shower system bathroom is simple but open to the elements open air it's everything it needs to be and so that completes this house tour over 100 years i think more like 150 years of family history in this home from here uh we're gonna do a few things around the community and actually we've been here for two days so we did quite a lot of activities around the village and so i'm gonna take you now show you some of the activities that we [Music] did [Music] foreign quickly before we have the massage though right on the same property in this field we have met up with uh forgers they forged steel uh they produced knives for the village all handmade um and so what they do is they make them from the truck leaf springs of a truck [Music] um that was very cool to have a chance to hang out with them for a minute and watch them as they do their craft of knife making that's cool i mean handmade knives forging them by hand with sledge hammers with a charcoal furnace and those knives are cool okay and now it's massage time [Music] and at this point in the afternoon i don't think there's anything that sounds better than a massage [Music] local salt massage oh that's cold water oh yeah oh this is the salt and [Music] is a combination of coffee grounds and another type of salt uh oh tamarind and some some other minerals well that feels great oh this is more awesome same also turmeric and salt okay enough but a different it looks like a wetter mixture of turmeric and salt goes on next oh man they feel incredibly soft just after like three minutes okay [Music] one of the better single foot massage i've ever had in my life she's like getting into every single crevice and every little pressure point on my foot i'm gonna go to sleep [Applause] [Music] on a way to go fishing or at least see the local style of the the fishing net on the river right here [Music] [Applause] yes [Music] [Applause] the weather is perfect and we've come to the river which uh literally okay this is not the the mekong river but we're just literally a stone's throw away from the mekong river which comes this river comes right off the mekong river uh and this is where they use the intake it's called the yuck yaw which is the the square nets which are on a balance like a seesaw actually we got to take this small little rickety boat to the platform even though it's just right there but it's muddy on the bank [Applause] he's gonna do it right now pull it down oh and so you can see the the net is gonna come up as he raises that seesaw that is such an incredible technique for fishing it pulls it all the way down and this is like the final little pull-up from the net awesome tea so he actually has to take a boat paddle a little boat out there to get uh to get the catch from the net but i have seen this style officially there's another place in thailand in patalong in southern thailand far away from la companom where they also this is a famous way to fish in that area in the lake area ah so then all the fish should be at the bottom very bottom of the net because that's the lowest point of the net they all should oh even as like a bucket at the bottom there okay it's back yeah foreign and just like that the net is back in the water to rest for another 30 minutes to make another catch that's you but um here's the fresh catch okay she said it's gonna he's gonna deep fry it thank you uncle [Music] did you get a coconut grandma just got like a coconut from the tree oh hot coffee good morning i had a great sleep last night and it is a cool actually it's a straight up cold 20 degrees right now which is exactly 68 degrees in fahrenheit oh man yeah that's like to the point where it the cold still feels good but it's on the verge of being actually cold now and i think we're about to have breakfast yeah actually breakfast was there's grandma back there she's uh boiling up some kind of like medicinal herb drinks this morning is that for drinking or for showering i think she boiled up this mixture of herbs for taking a bath it's uh herbal water which i think she's going to use for a bath smells good smells good i think you smell some pandanus leaves in there and some other leaves [Music] [Music] i'm gonna just wash my head and face [Music] oh yeah that smells great feels like my head is in a pandanus bush and micah had a whole shower and ying is gonna have a full shower too i think i'll just stick with washing my face but that does smell really good and feels great okay let's go eat breakfast my god grandma's putting your coconut coconut water we have a whole pot of what's called uh kapiak which is a noodle a rice noodle soup but thick and hearty and almost porridge like okay psychic you can smell the toasted garlic in there and that herb blend the green onions green onions i think and coriander oh yeah and i love what's good about this dish is it's so warming and again it's almost poured still because of the starch in the broth which thickens it okay but definitely chili in the morning is a must oh yeah spice things up in the morning it's the best way to wake up and next up try some of those noodles oh three types of meat there's pork meatballs there's the sausage and there's blood jelly oh yeah with that chili and those noodles i actually love this dish because it's so comforting it's comforting in the way that that uh rice porridge or congee is comforting and that same it's almost a it's almost like a kanji style bowl of noodles [Music] you taste a bit of pepper in there um actually i think the peppers coming from the vietnamese sausage that we all um and then with that chili with that herb mix [Applause] oh yeah that is going to complete this tour of our stay at ban natan village in in isan we're in isaan thailand and if you are in accompanom i would highly recommend this village this area for peace and quiet and for learning about the isan culture so that's going to be it for this video i want to say a big thank you for watching please remember to give it a thumbs up if you enjoyed it leave a comment below and also remember to subscribe for more travel guides and travel tips thanks again for watching goodbye from banaton village and thanks again for watching see you on the next video

Channel: Mark Abroad

Views: 374,641

Rating: 4.9364696 out of 5

Keywords: Thailand, Nakhon Phanom, Ban Na Thon Village, บ้านนาถ่อน, Mark Wiens, Thailand village, Thailand village life, Asian village, travel Thailand, Mekong River, Mekong river village, things to do in Thailand, what to do in Thailand, Thai food, Lao food, travel videos, travel vlog

Id: _Tu7nypKadM

Length: 19min 23sec (1163 seconds)

Published: Mon Feb 08 2021