GENERAL INTRODUCTION. You can click on what interests you below.

We're a Traditional Thai Massage School and Herbal Medicine Centre as well as a sort of Thai village inn with Live-in Accommodations for both students and guests. Licensed by the Thai Ministry of Education, we offer courses in Traditional Thai Massage,  Womblifting and  Related Herbal Therapies -- our classes are for 10 to 25 days with a maximum of 12 live-in students from novice to professional. But what's really unique about us as a school  is our guests and non-studying partners, some even with children. Indeed, everybody is welcome here, and anybody can sit around our big table or in a chair on the screened porch upstairs in one of our old wooden farmhouses.

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Our Director, the well-known teacher, Homprang Chaleekanha, is licensed as a Traditional Doctor, Herbal Pharmacologist, and Midwife by the Thai Ministry of Public Health, and our Certificates recognized  by The Thai Ministry of Education. In addition, we host Groups, Conferences and Seminars (up to 20 participants) for those who want to come here with their own teachers and/or special interests. And this is also the home of the poet, Christopher Woodman, and we welcome writers, artists, musicians, actors, philosophers, circus performers and indeed anyone who is troubled by whatever you call that thing buzzing around  in your bonnet.

STUDY AT BAANHOM SAMUNPHRAI

As soon as we are able to start live classes again we will, with the greatest pleasure, and we are carefully guarding the Deposits of all of you who tried to get here last March right up to the present. We have also posted all our live courses on our CALENDAR PAGE right up to June 2021, and will take bookings as soon as travel to Thailand becomes possible again.

                                          VISAS. 
We tried very hard to get students here this Fall, but even though there is very little Covid-19 in Thailand, the Government has not opened the country for STUDENT VISAS. (Although we are very disappointed, we agree entirely with that decision...)

The next step is likely to be easier with the country offering 90 DAY TOURIST VISAS (renewable 3 times!), but the 14 DAY QUARANTINE will still apply for the time being. We have a number of students who are willing to do the Quarantine in order to study for 3 or 4 months with us, and to make this financially possible we are offering a 15% DISCOUNT to help out with the extra cost.

Course Rates with Special 15% Covid Discount:

  60hr Course: 9 Study Days + 1 day  off  @ Bt. 20,900 -15%)   =   Bt. 17,765
  80hr Course: 12 Study Days + 1 day  off  @ Bt. 27,500 -15%) =   Bt. 23,290
  150hr Course: 22 Study Days + 3 days off @ Bt. 51,700 -15%) = Bt. 43,945

We are offering a SERIES OF GRADUATED COURSES starting in February 2021. The idea is to make it worth your time and effort to get here and do some serious study, so you can take as few or many courses as you wish, and stay with us for up to 3 or 4 months in one go!

Don't forget that everything is included at Baan Hom Samunphrai, so you don't have to spend a penny anywhere else -- and to be safe in class we don't want everybody in & out of town anyway. And you've got Maw Homprang as your teacher with the  best of assistant teachers, Ajarn Bang, the most beautiful garden, meditation sala, wifi, bicycles, delicious food, good talk-- and a training for a lifetime! What better way to use this crisis, for you & for us?

You can go to our CALENDAR PAGE for more Information.
 

THAI MASSAGE  +  HERBAL WORKSHOP COURSES

October 2020 to January 2021.

Dec 27th to 30th, 2020   30hr FOOT REFLEXOLOGY WORKSHOP                           OPEN

Jan 4th to 28th, 2021       150hr SPECIAL THERAPEUTIC MASSAGE                 OPEN

SERIES -- February to 2021.
(You may take as many or few as you like.)
We hope and pray that students may be able to travel again by this time and that some of you may be able to spend the 3 or 4 months with us you were unable to do last Fall. That's our dream! Please do get in touch if you are interested and/or just hopeful!

1.) Feb. 2nd to 14th,  2021                   80hr THAI MASSAGE                                  OPEN

2.) Feb. 18th to March 14th, 2021    150hr THAI MASSAGE                                   OPEN

3.) March 16th to 20th, 2021   30hr FOOT REFLEXOLOGY WORKSHOP         OPEN

4.) Mar 22 to April 2nd,  202160hr WOMBLIFTING & POSTPARTUM CARE  OPEN

5.) Apr 21 to May 15, 2021      150hr SPECIAL THERAPEUTIC MASSAGE            OPEN

6.) May 19 to 31st, 2021 60hr HERBAL WORKSHOP & FOOD AS MEDICINE     OPEN

For more Details and Course Descriptions please go to our

 CALENDAR PAGE

 

HOMPRANG ZOOM!

A Facebook Covid Project in Development.

Homprang has long been encouraged to do ZOOM CLASSES, but as she has always had so many students come to her in Chiang Mai  there has never been the space to fit in more work. But now with the Pandemic that opportunity has arrived, and Homprang is very excited to give Zoom a chance. With the technical help of her friend, Ting, she is e-mailing over 500 of our old Thai-Massage/Herbal-Medicine Students & Friends announcing this Proposal.

If you received one of these e-mails, or wished you had,  please do visit her on her  FACEBOOK PAGE -- as the logistics of  her Zoom classes involve very different technology, this project will be managed quite separately from www.homprang.com.

In connection with this special project, you should e-mail Homprang and/or Ting at the new "Homprang Zoom!" address: homprangzoom@gmail.com.

HOW TO GET HERE:

You can print out our Map in Thai and English to get here. It takes 15-20 minutes from the Chiang Mai city centre in a tuk tuk (3 wheeler), song taew (red pick-up truck taxi) or blue & yellow passenger-car taxi -- they all cost about the same. Our phone numbers are all there so when the driver gets lost he can phone us.

There are more maps and information on our Where We Are page.

OUR TREATMENTS:     

Among other services, we offer Thai Traditional Massage and Herbal Steam Baths in a small village 9 kms southwest of Chiang Mai. But it's essential to phone ahead as we are very small -- 

  tel. 053.817.362 or 093.827.9466 - Thai speaking staff members.

  tel. 081.885.1429 - English or Thai direct to Homprang (8.00am or after 6.00pm is best for her.)

A Full Massage takes about two hours and costs 800 baht -- a Foot Massage is 400 baht and takes about one hour. Either can be combined with a  Herbal Steam Bath (200 baht) which can take up to an hour and includes dips in our cooling pool along with home-grown herbal tea.

If you think you might benefit from a special Therapeutic Massage (1300 baht), Therapeutic Massage with Herbal Compresses (1600 baht), or Womb-lifting (1600 baht), you can discuss your condition with Homprang. Indeed, you may come just for an informal talk about your condition with her -- there is no charge for that. And we welcome visitors.

 (You can click here  for a list of our Treatments and Charges.)     

                 
                           You will walk by this moss-covered waterpot under our Bo Tree as you enter.

OUR ACCOMMODATIONS:  

Beside students and their partners, our guests include individuals of all ages, couples and whole families who come to us for a variety of reasons: the beauty of the place, the good company around our big table, the herbal steam baths, massages and other therapies, and of course the opportunity to relax, catch up, recover, or get on with some personal project. There are no coffee shops, restaurants, bars or even 7/11s around us, so you can't just walk out our door for urban refreshment. On the other hand, we have rice fields, the river, small local temples and earth-markets everywhere, and very likely you will be the only foreigner wherever you go, on foot or by bicycle. It's rough, simple, and there's an awful lot of litter, but it's also somehow more than just there, and much more than beautiful.

You can find out more about what it's like in "Where We Are."

You can go to "Accommodations" for a description of our houses, and  here  for our Rates.

 
Baan Uii Dee with its hand-made green tiles -- always cool and  fresh under bare feet (no shoes are worn on any of our floors). You can see how the floor is used in the various photos of students preparing herbs for herbal compresses and steam baths in the subsequent pages.

 HOMPRANG CHALEEKANHA
 (you can click on the photo to see some of the things she does) 

Baan Hom Samunphrai is the home of Maw Samunphrai ("Herbal Medicine Doctor") Homprang Chaleekanha, 61, a specialist in Traditional Thai Massage (Nuad Boran) and Thai Yoga (Rasidaton) who also practices Thai Therapeutic Massage, Midwifery and Herbal Medicine. 'Maw Hom,' as she is called, 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. Maw Hom 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 rare facility among genuine traditional healers. And finally, Homprang is very active in the local Thai community, and volunteers her time and expertise to Thai patients as well as to the growing number of Thai students coming back to their traditional medicine. And she's an inspiring leader.

  

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.