Page 59 - ELITE PLUS MAGAZINE VOL8

“I’m really glad to be here,” said Jirapatr Amesbutr, the guitarist and vocalist from the Isn’t Band from the ’80s. Jirapatr also joins Pinky & the Jingle Bell as a guitarist. “I’m having lots of fun. It’s like making a trip with friends. Tonight’s show was not a concert. We skipped all the con- cert format and etiquette, and allowed ourselves to be very casual with the crowd, joking around and being silly. And you saw that the crowd really loves us like that.”Baan Tong Na is an accommoda- tion with a fun theme: a farmer’s home with vintage decor. The simple-looking rooms in wooden huts along a channel, or on the second floor of the main building, offer full amenities and comfort. The small green rice paddy in the middle of the main building and the outdoor vegetable garden add to the theme. Visitors can feel at home while relaxing in the fresh air.The group started the following morning putting on mauhom farmer outfits and getting ready to learn organic farming. Breakfast was served at Krua Sukho, the dining area overlooking green paddies. The meals were presented in careful detail, with buffet food prepared in banana leaves. All ingredients from the organic farming project were fresh and cooked into typical dishes such as pork curry with water spinach, pad thai, tamarind chilli sauce and mango chilli sauce. They also served creative dishes such as fried chicken in basil leaves and lotus stems, and fried Chinese buns with sweet chilli sauce.The farming project at Sukhothai Airport is one of the first recognized organic agricultural projects in the country, and has passed on research and knowledge to the local communities. The project thrives on its developed rice species, such asred fragrant unpolished Sukhothai rice and black fragrant unpolished Sukhothai rice, not to mention the unpolished fragrant jasmine rice, whose leaves are made into delicious chlorophyll shakes and caffeine-free tea. They also harvest vegetables, fruits and duck eggs, and raise poultry and 220 water buffalos including albino ones, some of which are donated to villagers for breeding. The produce is sent to organic shops at Bangkok Hospitals around Thailand and prepared for Bangkok Airways in-flight meals.The first farmer mission was to collect duck eggs. The ducks were let out to frolic in the connecting pond, and the group collected the freshly laid eggs from the empty pen. Next was to see the rice milling process, with the rice selected by hand to get the best quality grains to be packaged. At the vegetable farm, a variety of vegetables and fruits wereElite+ 57