Rak Tamachat Permaculture Thailand
Our Permaculture Farm
Living in Permadise
Our Permaculture Farm is located in the heart of Thailand’s idyllic farmland. The 75 acres of corn farm purchased in 2010 have been holistically transformed throughout the years to become a Permaculture Paradise – or Permadise – and is now home to Asia’s most renowned Natural Building and Permaculture Design Institute.
More than 17,000 trees have been planted over the last 10 years and, following the guidelines of its own Permaculture Master Plan implementation, Rak Tamachat successfully transitioned to a Fully Integrated Farm, incorporating many Permaculture systems that allowed the farm to thrive to this day.
Among many other features, when you come to Rak Tamachat Permaculture Thailand you will be able to see our sustainable systems in action: Permaculture Herb and Vegetable Garden, Thai Traditional Organic Garden, Permaponic Garden Beds, Long-Term and Short-Term Compost Areas, Sustainable Teaching and Living Facilities constructed with the help of Natural Building Techniques and Materials, Filtration Reed Beds, Water Harvesting Ponds, Vermiculture Farm, Broad-Scale Organic Farming, Holistic Goat Rearing, Free-Range Chicken Rearing…
We not only work and teach on the farm, but we also live in our permadise, and we hope you will learn to enjoy it as much as we do!
Our Permaculture Farm – The Main Sala
Our Permaculture Intentional Community’s Living Area
The Permaculture Communal Kitchen
We grow food and we like to cook it. That’s what we do. It is part of our permaculture lifestyle. The large Permaculture Communal Kitchen is where people express their culinary expertise. It is great to have people show off their talent by creating delicious dishes from their home county. Everyone takes part in some aspect of preparing meals whether it is wandering the permaculture gardens for ingredients, prepping food, making sauces, cooking at the stoves, setting the table, or cleaning up at the end.
Indoor Dining Area
Our Sala is built to host a large permaculture community. To that effect, we used huge boards of reclaimed teak wood to build a massive dining table that can easily seat 20 people. All of our chairs are made from bamboo and have Thai cushions. The rustic understory ceiling is constructed from reclaimed, rusted, corrugated metal. We use other wooden tables to act as a buffet area, where people help themselves with the delicious dishes prepared in the communal kitchen.
Outdoor Dining and Relaxing Area
Our Permaculture Community likes to eat outside, relax with friends, and soak up the ambiance as the birds and dragonflies zip by traveling on the cool breeze from the natural pond; natural living at its best, the way we were meant to eat. The “Al Fresco” Area is a unique, comfortable seating area, made with reclaimed wood tables and reclaimed truck tires chairs. This is where people usually join at the end of a productive day in the permaculture gardens to unwind, drink a beer, and share stories.
Outdoor Special Meal Nights
At Rak Tamachat Permaculture Thailand, we love to “mix things up” and alternate our usual buffet dinners with Special Meal Nights, where the cooking is actually done in the outdoor area of the sala.
The hot pot night is one of our student’s favorite moments. Also called Thai Barbecue, the hot pot is a specially-casted metal pot that goes over a clay burner, allowing people to grill meat, tofu, tempeh or mushrooms while a vegetable broth is kept at cooking temperature to soak your noodles, vegetables and/or eggs.
We also occasionally have a barbecue at Rak Tamachat, as well as a burger night. The barbecue is made with reclaimed materials: a metal grid resting over firebricks, and we managed to find a second-hand flat top grill to prepare our delicious burgers. We respect the dietary choices of vegetarians and vegans: we grill sweet corn from our garden when in season, as well as vegetable shish-kebabs, and prepare tasty bean burgers for burger night.
The adobe, wood-burning Pizza Oven takes center stage when we fire it up for a night of culinary creativity as everyone gets involved in the build-your-own pizza-making process. The event is always accompanied by fun and laughter that carries on late into the night.
The Music Lounge
Cozy up with a glass of homemade wine, or local beer in our sala’s music lounge. Complete with a comfy couch, wooden chairs, and many music instruments (guitar, didgeridoo, percussions), it’s a perfect den to chill out with friends after a long day’s hard work and release your creative side. It is also the perfect area to store our tam-tams in a centralized place, so we know where to find it when we improvise a jam on Fire Nights!
Other Living Areas
The Classroom
The place where we hold direct instruction about the concepts and techniques that you will later learn in action by doing. The classroom is comfortable, well ventilated by a cool breeze that blows in as the air crosses over the Big Pond. When there is no wind, the classroom is cooled down by ample wall fans. Large Thai-style, cushioned bamboo benches ring the central point of instruction so you can get comfortable and learn in a casual, relaxing manner.
The Bungalows
The fourteen double occupancy or private stay bungalows are located adjacent to a large pond, and they are surrounded by a heavy planting of a variety of native trees which is the beginning of a Thai jungle forest restoration project. They are constructed from 50-year-old reclaimed teak wood from traditional Thai houses. The sad popularity of concrete construction in Thailand is creating an aftermarket for the old teak wood. Teak is remarkable in its durability as it is naturally rot, fungi, and insect resistant. These resistances do decrease as the wood ages, but with care to minimize the exposure of the wood to those forces we can expect it to last another 50 years. All of the bungalows have a balcony. The bungalows feel good to be inside. It’s like being hugged by the forest. They come equipped with two twin mattresses and mosquito nets. They all have fans and power outlets for charging electronics.
The Tropical Showers
Situated at the Northern end of Bungalow Row, our Natural Toilets and Showers – one of our Best Thai Permaculture Projects – allow you to clean up in style. When you are learning by getting your hands dirty, there is nothing better than taking a shower in one of our “Thai Style” Open Air showers and Natural Toilets. Getting back to nature, and reconnecting with the elements is what Life is all about. It has a black water septic tank that is connected to a grey water reed bed. It is a great example of a natural water treatment system.
The Fire Pit
Once in a while, we organize a Fire Night. We make a bonfire out of the deadwood students gather on the farm (the ashes are reused in the garden), and we enjoy the hypnotic show that flames offer the human eye, under a start-lit sky. Then we bring out the bongos and tam-tams, and we improvise a collective musical jam to release our primal instincts and connect with our ancestral behavior, as human beings have done for thousands of years.
The Swimming Pond
After a good morning session of Permaculture in Practice or after a rewarding day of Natural Building, there is nothing as pleasant as to enjoy the refreshing waters of our natural swimming pond. Take a dive, go for a swim, or simply unwind on the diving deck, and savor being surrounded by nature in the company of your fellow permaculturists.
Permaculture Gardening and Farming
The Mandala Garden
The Traditional Thai Garden
The Nursery
The Seed Room
The Compost and Biochar Area
The Bio-Fertilizers Area