When we set off for northeast Thailand, we expected some sleepy villages, and rice paddies. We didn't expect a police escort....

We arrived via bus (of course), to Korat. Korat is a medium sized city in northeast Thailand and would be the starting point for our trip out to the village and to the non profit development center, CBIRD. Our night in Korat was pretty terrible. When we arrived, it was really raining, the streets were flooded with at least a foot of water on the ground. The place we stayed at was, well, very budget. It was a really depressing night, we waded through high water in the street, the city was all concrete, with no architecture to speak of, that we could see and we couldn't find any sort of restaurant so we ate dinner at 7-11. It was bad.

The next morning, the rain went away, the sun was out and we went around to find a way to get to the Community Based Integrated Rural Development (CBIRD) Center at Nang Rong. We were directed to CBIRD by a friend, Kirstin Greene who worked their a number of years ago. We were to go to a village for silk textiles and to see the workings of the Center. We were very surprised to find quite a big operation, with hotel rooms and a conference center and restarurant (Cabbages and Condoms) along with a small industrial center with garment workers, including a building that was making Nike products. We weren't allowed to take pictures or go in, due to copyright protections...

From Kirstin's contacts, we met with the Director, Khun Vicha Vudhisen, who gave us a tour of the site and and overview of what CBIRD does for the local population. The area is very poor and most people subsist on rice farming, which is unpredictable and not profitable. CBIRD does a lot, their focus is to provide employment opportunities within the province, so people don't have to leave their families and go look for work in the urban areas. CBIRD is an arm of Population and Community Development Association (PDA). PDA started in 1974 to provide food and family planning (the cabbages and condoms part of the story).

We visited a silkweaving village, Nong Tha Kai, and the ruins of Phanom Rung which were a short drive from CBIRD.

We also met with the founder of PDA, Khun Mechai Viravidya, who was visiting the area for a ribbon cutting ceremony at another local village. He offered that we tag along for the day with his team of staff and we would get a ride back to Bangkok, which was perfect for us.

We didn't realize that part of the van tour to the rural area would involve a police escort, since Khun Mechai is a very important person. It was something else! Here's a photo of the ceremony for the opening of the water pumping system. The system will provide water to about 100 families who have never had access to running water before. The whole village showed up for the ceremony. We also visited a brand new elementary school, which Khun Mechai was instrumental in developing, Lam Plai Pattana School.

It was a really great day to see what types of community development projects are happening in such a needy area of the country. We had a glimpse of life that we never would have, had we not known about the CBIRD Center/Resort.