Tuesday just gone was the day every year that my family return to our home town and pay our respects to the temple where my Mom's ashes are interred. Its been several years since she passed and this small ceremony that we arrange every year gives us time to reflect on her life and also gives us a chance to catch up with our relatives and visit the homes of aunts and uncles. We can't visit everyone every year and it seems that each year we spend time at the home of a different relative. This year we visited my Uncle Tong - the husband of my Mom's sister.
So I wanted to make this visit part of this weeks post here in the Architecture+Design community as his house is just amazing in every way. Firstly he built it himself with the help of family and friends. Secondly it's such a fantastic house because it's just like a Swiss chalet - he actually built it from photos in old magazines - this is over 40 years ago and in the very deep countryside of South Thailand. The entire home is hand built from locally sourced timber that he felled on his own land. Nowadays to build with such massive timbers would just be out of the question as you simply cant get hold of these massive trees any more. Old growth trees are all protected in Thailand and logging of old growth is absolutely illegal. Just look at the size of the columns - all massive tree trunks!
The interior of Uncle Tong's home is all wood. The walls, the stairway, the floors and the ceilings. It's like being inside a fairytale house. He also built much of the furniture including this huge dining table from a solid piece of timber - you cant begin to imagine how expensive this would be today!
The front doors of the house are solid wood and covered with intricate carvings that he had a local artisan produce for him.
The interior of the home features a very cool roughly cut stairway to the mezzanine level. The banister is solid uncut tree trunk. It really feels like you are in the home a lumberjack in Canada or Norway. I'm just so proud of my Uncle for having built such a cool and unique home in the jungle of South Thailand.
Around the house are gardens and vegetable plots. Chickens and ducks run everywhere with cats and dogs and even a goat. At the bottom of the property is a canal and near the canal my Uncle grows Ginseng which he uses to make a traditional fermented Thai drink called Ya Dong. It has a very strong flavour with an alcoholic content around 12% - like wine. Here is my brother holding up some freshly pulled Ginseng root and me pouring some Ya Dong...
I left there to return to my busy life in Phuket feeling refreshed and invigorated. Revisiting my uncles house that I had actually not been to since I was a little kid was very humbling. To see that he had such cool style and had built this beautiful home for his family in the jungles. The care and thought he had put in to the different elements like the intricately carved doors and the hand made furniture made me feels so proud of him. I cant wait to return and I think when this bottle of Ya Dong is finished I may have to!
I will leave you with a few photos of us paying our respects to dear Mom. I hope you enjoyed this little story of my visit to my home town and to Uncle Tong's wooden chalet...:)
