Nowadays there is no need to rush to find shelter since modern travelers are surrounded by various types of accommodation. However, despite all this glitz, many travelers are still yearning for a chance to befriend the locals and really experience the other ways of life. Indeed, there might be thousands of farmland and farmers in Thailand but it takes a different kind of journey to find them.

After a one-hour ride on a bus and a brief trip in a pick-up truck taxi passing, I now standing in a courtyard of a group of traditional Thai houses in Plai Phong Phang Village. The small sleepy town is like any other agricultural based town in the country - a community of peasant clans living in dilapidated-looking stilt wooden houses by the canals with the backdrop of greenery orchards. What seems to distinguish Umpawa from other towns is its vicinity to Bangkok, 60 kilometers southwest of the sleepless metropolis.

The young man shouted that I should get on the boat now so that he could drop me off at the house of my host family in time before lunch. Several minutes later, as the ear blasting long tail boat was wading through shallow winding waterways, I was thinking this was a very narrow, murky dirty looking canals just like what I saw in the city – a kind of water any living creatures would not wish to live in. Ironically, life prevails here. Both sides of the canal were straddled with evergreen fruit plantation; salamanders lazily crawled back into the mangroves’ twisted roots and many old elegant traditional Thai houses rose along the water edge. It made my boat look like a time machine that was leading me back to the old Siam 40 years ago.

Plai Phong Phang is one of several villages in Umpawa District, Samutsongkram Province, the birthplace of the world famous Siamese twin. The town does not have any potential tourist attraction or renowned temple. It is just an ordinary town. Villagers grow palm trees and Thai tropical fruits for a living. Most of their farms and houses are sitting by the canals, a network of countless small waterways that lead to the Meklong River. It is just a quiet little community. The way of life seems to be protected from the outside world.

The boat stopped in front of a Thai style wooden house. The kind looking middle age man introduced himself and led me into his house. His name is Samruay. He was going to be my host family for tonight. His house is a two storeyed concrete building next to the triangle-roofed wooden house that belongs to his sister. His living room is an open area of glass window cupboards, wooden bed, television set, VCD player and a baby cradle. “My wife and I babysit our workers’ child while his parents are working in the farm.” Uncle Samruay explains. “My children work in the city and won’t come back until the weekend. We do not have much to do during the day.”

It is unusual nowadays to find old adults living alone in their house. That is probably why he joins the Plai Phong Phang Home-Stay Village Community, a project that is run by a former village head and aimed to sustain and publicize the way of life of Thai villagers. Participating host families provide accommodation to visitors while the home-stay organizer is in charge of food and the village tour that includes visiting local temples, paddling the boat and a night canal tour. The latter seems to be the highlight of my visit since riding a boat at night unfolded the mystery (the truth) of the village way of their personal life. This does not include the sighting of a great number of amazing fireflies mating under the trees along the canals.

Although we met for the first time, Uncle Samrauy looked comfortable and hospitable with a stranger like me. Certainly, this is not the first time he welcomed a visitor to his house. But he looks genuine and natural in treating guests like me.

It’s just another world, a mysterious interesting one. This is no way a paradise.

Stay with the locals