GENERAL INTRODUCTION.  

A Thai Massage School & Herbal Health Centre.

We are a Thai Ministry of Education school offering courses in the following (you can click on what interests you).

Traditional Thai Massage;

Thai Therapeutic Massage;

Womblifting & Post-Partum Care;

Food as Medicine;

Traditional Herbal Compresses & Health Care.

All our classes are taught by our director, Homprang Chaleekanha. They are in English, last from 10 to 25 days, and have a maximum of  12 students in a class.

We are unique in that we are a  Live-in School -- almost all our students live here with us. But we also welcome guests and non-studying partners, and a few students even come with children. Everybody enjoys eating together around our big table, and of course sitting in a chair like this on the porch of one of our old wooden farmhouses.

 

We are also well-known for our Massage Treatments and Herbal Steam Baths, but it's essential to phone  a few days ahead -- tel.  053.817.362. We have just reopened  after being closed for 2 1/2 years and don't yet have our full staff of therapists, so you may have to be patient. But do try -- we're doing our best!.

And finally, this is the home of Homprang's family which includes her husband, the poet Christopher Woodman, who has been assisting her for almost 30  years. He is the one who writes all this, and may even answer the phone.

'BAAN ROM YEN'

Having only just survived the hottest Dry Season on record from March to July this year, and realizing this is likely to be the norm for years to come, we are building a new building that can be air-conditioned when it's simply too hot to work in our open Training Sala (there's a large photo of a massage class in cooler times further down this page).

Baan Rom Yen: In Thai, Baan means 'house."  Rom Yen is a colorful expression that has many of the same meanings in Thai as the modern American word "cool,"  i.e. "fresh," "good," "calm," "laid-back."

Below is what the wooden framework looked like on August 3rd 2023, and you can see who's doing the work: Homprang's brother, Saman Chaleekanha, our master craftsman, is up on the roof with his son Man while Nit and Ann are supplying them from below. Homprang and Christopher were in Jackson Hole, Wyoming while all this was going on -- they only came home  on August 2nd to find this much of it already completed.

       

A week later and the walls and old teak windows with shutters have been filled in, and the building starts to look a lot cooler. It's also about 20% broader than Baan Rusi, and the roof beams higher. (The fern leaves you can see just below are under our Bo Tree, which has become the guardian shrine of the new building.)

                   

Needless to say, the 50+ brave students & guests who suffered the heat with us from March to the end of May this year will be relieved to hear that Baan Rom Yen will be ready well before the heat descends again in February 2024, and of course the air will be purified as well, removing the smoke and dust that comes with the heat. We bit the bullet because without such a solution we might well have had to close Baan Hom Samunphrai for 4 or 5 months a year and, if so, the whole place would fail. This is the home of the whole Chaleekanha family as well as their livelihood, after all, so failure was unthinkable.

2023 COURSE FEES

Our current Course Fee is Bt 2,200 per study-day, and includes all of the following: 

1.) 1 hour of Rasidaton (Thai Yoga) at 7am;

2.) 6 hrs of Teaching & Supervised Practice -- 9am to 4pm;

3.) a Private Room with 3 meals a day (Full Pension);

4.) Herbal Steam Baths everyday at 5.30pm.

5.) The use of all our Facilities including Bicycles and Wifi.

We charge Bt 1,100 for  Days-off (1 per study-week), and this is also the day-rate for Partners and Guests.

To reserve a place in a class there is a 25% Deposit. The PayPal Buttons are to the right of each course on our Calendar Page.

                         [Today's Exchange Rate (November 15th, 2023):  $1.00 = Bt 36.09; €1.00 = Bt38.69]                                     
 

 NEW 2024 COURSE FEES

As of March 1st, 2024, we will raise our Course Fees by 10%  -- we are proud to be able to say that this will be our first increase in 15 years!

The Course Fee will become Bt 2400 per Study Day, and Bt 1,200 for Days-off, Extra Days, and for all Guests.  There will also be a 10% increase  in our charges for Treatments, Steam Baths, Meals and Special Services as well.

The 2024 Paypal Buttons from March to June
are now posted on our Calendar Page.
                                                               

2023 CALENDAR
Click on the Titles for Course Descriptions:

October 21st to November 14th, 2023
150hr THAI MASSAGE COURSE
(22 study days & 3 days off)

December 7th to 16th, 2023
 60hr WOMBLIFTING & POSTPARTUM CARE
(9 study days & 1 day off)

December 23rd, 2023 to January 16th, 2024
150hr SPECIAL THERAPEUTIC COURSE
(22 study days & 3 days off)

2024 CALENDAR

March  8th to 20th, 2024
 80hr THAI MASSAGE COURSE
(12 study days & 1 day off)

March 25th to April 4th, 2024
 60hr WOMBLIFTING & POSTPARTUM CARE
(9 study days & 1 day off)

April 23rd to May 2nd, 2024
 60hr HERBAL WORKSHOP with FOOD AS MEDICINE
(9 study days & 1 day off)

May 8th to June 1st, 2024
150hr THAI MASSAGE COURSE
(22 study days & 3 days off)

June 6th to 18th, 2024
 60hr WOMBLIFTING & POSTPARTUM CARE
(9 study days & 1 day off)
 

You can visit  our Calendar Page for more information.

HOW TO FIND OUT MORE ABOUT US.

You can go to our Training Page for more Information on what it is like to study and live at our school.

You might want to look at our Credentials page. We are a Ministry of Education School and award official MOE Certificates.

Our Calendar Page lists all our courses with their dates and a detailed description of each.

Click here for questions about Reservations & Fees.

A Massage class in our Traing Sala, Baan Rusi.
(photo by Tobie Stevens)

HOW TO GET HERE from CHIANG MAI CITY:

You can go to our Where We Are page for maps and instructions. It takes 15-20 minutes from the Chiang Mai city centre in a tuk tuk, song taew or blue & yellow taxi -- they all cost about 200 baht. Our phone number is there too so when the driver gets lost he can phone us.

HOMPRANG CHALEEKANHA

 (Click on the Photo to see other things she does!)

Baan Hom Samunphrai is the home of Maw Samunphrai ("Herbal Medicine Doctor") Homprang Chaleekanha, 64, a specialist in Traditional Thai Massage (Nuad Boran) and Thai Yoga (Rasidaton) who also practices Thai Therapeutic Massage, Midwifery and Herbal Medicine. In the photo above  she is making a compress with fresh herbs, one of the favourite activities of her students from all over the world. (If you click on the Photo you can see some of the other beautiful and mysterious things she does with her students.)

'Maw Hom' grew up in a small village on the Burmese border with no road or electricity, the only 'doctor' being her rice-farming grandmother who doubled as the local mid­wife and herbalist -- there's more about her grandmother here.

Homprang is now not only licensed by the Thai Ministry of Public Health as a Traditional Doctor but as a Herbal Pharmacologist, a Traditional Midwife, and a Massage Teacher, and her school is approved by the Thai Ministry of Education. She has also travelled widely in Europe and North America, and is fluent in English as well as Thai, a very rare facility among genuine traditional healers. And finally, Homprang has for years been very active in the local Thai community, and has volunteered her time and expertise to Thai patients as well as to the growing number of Thai students who are rediscovering their roots.

    

Maw Hom comparing notes with a Canadian Botanist; enjoying her friends by the pool; working with two professional colleagues, one Thai, one English; leading the Rasidaton (Thai Yoga) at 7am.

     

Introducing her western students to Acharn Suwan, a Buddhist philosopher & herbalist, at his simple garden retreat in Chiang Dao; demonstrating 'Womb-lifting' at an International Health Exhibition; with her colleagues at The Association of Thai Traditional Healers -- as a group they are heavily involved with teaching young Thai students old medicine!

     

All the above roots, stems, leaves, flowers and fruit have medicinal value, and Maw Hom will show you them if not in her own herb  garden then in her community or earth market. In the final photo, Maw Hom is showing Thai children from an International School how medicines were made when she was a child.  The students all left with a little bottle of Tiger Balm made by themselves. This, she feels, is some of her most influential work.

For FLIGHT & VISA  INFORMATION please visit our  'WHERE WE ARE' page.