Balinghasai Farms

My sudden trip to Thailand in 2010 paved a lot of good opportunities in my life; I’ve seen places, met new friends and met the girl who would later be my wife. Yes, that trip has been very fortunate for me indeed! Looking back though, all those almost didn’t become possible had I entertained the thought of not joining that trip — which I almost did. Thailand was then the least of my priorities to visit although I’ve heard a lot about the interestingly wide array of fruits that they grow there and the notoriously spicy concoctions that the Thais used to lure food adventurers from all over the globe. I would rather go far off sea on a semi-habitated island of coconuts or where there is cooler climate or where it snows or somewhere mountainous or medieval or far more exotic than the Philippines or Thailand. And where it got me? Thailand! ha!

Fasttracked to the present and through numerous back trips to Bangkok to woo, Pim, now embraces the married life with me here in the Philippines and enjoys every opportunity to visit and work the farm. With plainly native trees planted on every nook and corner of the property and a few hundreds of the Philippine Carabao mangoes and bananas, there’s not much in there really that would interest a foreigner like her. But Pim, lucky for me (!), is not that hard to please. Nonetheless, I made the most visible area of the farm a little special for her - something to remind her always of home; a garden of Thai herbs and vegetables. She liked the idea very much that on a return trip to Bangkok we brought in (ssshhhh!) seed packets of various herbs - which we have already tested planting with favorable results, a few cuttings of the leafy vegetable they call “Phak waan” (Sauropus androgynus, “Binahian” in the Philippines) and the aromatic Phak phai (Persicaria odorata). The Phak waan and Phak phai will have their own beds soon.

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