Lamai's Guesthouse is located in the province of Isan (also spelled Isaan or Esarn), about 7 hours by train from Bangkok, in a rural village. The guesthouse is run by Lamai, who was born and raised in that village, and her Welsh husband Jimmy with their little daughter Lizzy. They wanted to make a difference in this poor area and build this guesthouse which can accomodate up to 6 people. Like this, tourists have the opportunity to see some "real" Thailand, without having too much of a negative impact on the cultural and environment. We stayed in a large room, which was cleaned every day, with air-conditioning and toilet and shower next door. In the mornings and evenings we dined outside at various pretty places in the garden.

JImmy and Lamai offer various tours: You can participate in rural life and go Scorpion hunting, cook ants and plant rice, you can see how silk worms are grown and how silk is made, or visit some of the Khmer temples in the area.

We chose the temple tour and saw various very impressive (Angkor Vat like) Khmer temples, museums and excavation sites. JImmy would always talk plans for the next day over with us and then he and Lamai would drive us there, we would have time to explore, then we all had lunch, went to see some more or went home and had some of Lamai's fantastic food. However, we also got a walking tour of the village, met some of Lamai's family, saw silk worms in various stages and tried our hand at silk weaving. Jimmy and Lamai were very flexible and accomodated us in every possible way. Jimmy told us lots of things about Thai culture and life in Thailand, which were very interesting and so we learned many things we otherwise would not have seen or heard of. This was truly alternative travel! Everything had a very personal touch about it. We are extremely happy about how this holiday went and will certainly go back to hunt some scorpions.