Thailand -- Day One, Mission Health Promotion Centre

The Saturday evening before I left for Thailand I arrived home quite late. I still had some packing to do and so did not go to bed at all. Around 4:30 that morning I left for Nowon, an area in Seoul about 20-30 minutes from where I live. From there some friends and I were able to catch an Airport Limousine, basically a shuttle bus that commutes between the airport and certain stops in Seoul.

I was quite tired by the time the bus came but it wasn’t comfortable enough to nap properly on the way to the airport. At the airport we met up with the rest of the sixteen people whom went together on the “Health Education Practise Trip to Thailand.” The members included students and lecturers from the masters course in Public Health, some family and friends, and me. I went along as another representative lecturer from our university and because natural health therapies are one of my big interests.

On the plane I didn’t get much sleep either and the two hour van ride to the centre we would stay for most of the week was also quite uncomfortable.

At long last we arrived at the Mission Health Promotion Centre (MHPC), in Muaklek, Saraburi Provence. The MHPC was a wonderful surprise. We didn’t expect anything like this at all. It set in a lush tropic setting, with beautiful facilities. The air conditioned rooms were luxurious, the food delectable and the swimming pool lavish.

It has been years since I last had such a great time swimming. I grew up on a farm where we had a nice big swimming pool, as well as a natural dam, where I could swim to my hearts delight as a child. Having grown up with a private swimming pool, I’m somewhat spoiled with having so much water space for oneself. In Korea the public swimming pools are uncomfortably crowded so I haven’t had an opportunity to swim in a big swimming pool like this in years. The last time I was able to spend so much time in the water was in 2003 when I lived in a holiday resort that had a swimming pool, albeit not a very big one.

The MHPC focuses on healthy living and serves a completely vegetarian, nearly vegan, menu that uses very little oil. The food blazed with Thai herbs and flavours. I haven’t enjoyed eating this much in a very long time. Korean cuisine is rather bland compared to Thai food. There is also a grand variety of tropical fruits. Many of the fruits I had there for the first time, like custard fruit, durian, jack fruit, dragon eye, and others of which the names escaped me.