Gaia Ashram Venue and Facilities
All our facilities here at Gaia Ashram are made out of natural materials like mud, bamboo, wood, or reclaimed material that we got from roadside dumps or construction sites. We currently have 7 earthen houses as well as some bamboo structures and a toilet and shower block out of reclaimed concrete. We are still working on some structures, maintaining existing ones, and renovate others. We try to use as many natural materials as possible and we try to design our systems to have a very low to zero environmental impact.
Closed-loop systems
We are trying to close our loops as much as possible. By building a compost toilet, for example, we reduce huge amounts of waste, water & chemical usage that is associated with conventional western type toilet systems and sewage treatment plants. Here at Gaia Ashram our waste actually becomes food for our timber and fruit trees.
Gaia ashram Sala
The sala was the first structure build at Gaia Ashram with adobe mudbricks and reclaimed wood at the heart of Gaia Ashram. The sala is still in process of being build and has given many volunteers, interns, and course participants an opportunity to learn about natural building. The heart of Gaia Ashram has held many people and the doors of the heart of Gaia Ashram are wide open for you!
The groundfloor of our Sala is a multifunctional space as it is our common space, dining space, library, meditation & yoga hall, as well as classroom and workshop space. The second floor hosts our spacious dormitory.
Gaia Ashram Cafe
Our GAIA CAFE is a colorful earthen building that hosts our cafe and our GAIA ESSENCE natural products. The Gaia Cafe is a perfect place to hang out, enjoy our hand-roasted lemongrass tea in the hammock, browse through our products, or check out our little tree nursery. We sell organic coffee, as well as herbal and healthy drinks, and other natural products from the land and from other projects with similar values.
Part of the profit from the sell of these natural products will go into the Gaia Ashram project & eventually part of the profit will go into supporting the local community. It is our long-term aim to work with the local community to empower them to create more & more natural products for sale and to provide an opportunity for them to earn some extra income.
You can book a visit to our Gaia Cafe and our learning center!
กาแฟบ้านดินกายา Gaia Cafe
Gaia Ashram Fairy house
Our Fairy House is the guesthouse for our Eco-Farm Stay and gives some extra luxury for our volunteers and course participants who want more privacy. The Fairy House is right next to a magical wild bamboo forestand that is full of fairies and other unseen beings.
There are 3 bigger rooms with a fan upstairs ideal for a couple or family (max. 4 people) with a small balcony looking into the forest, and 6 smaller rooms downstairs.
Fairy House
Our Community Kitchen
The kitchen is an important community space of Gaia Ashram. Here our volunteers to prepare meals together, have pizza parties, or kitchen dances!
Our toilets And showers
We have two types of toilet systems here at Gaia Ashram. Both are compost toilets that reduce huge amounts of waste, water, and chemical usage and produce beautiful compost instead that we’re using to nurture our fruit and timber trees.
Our Vermicomposting Water Toilet
Our vermicomposting water toilet basically is a “normal” toilet just without all the chemical usage that is used to treat the black water. In our case, we’re having worms taking care of the human waste and letting them turn it into fertile compost. But have a look yourself:
Our Dry compost toilet
Our dry compost toilet is on the second floor of our toilet and shower block. For this structure, we decided to do a recycled green building instead of a natural building as it includes a lot of wet areas especially the shower and the poo holding chambers. The compost toilet structure itself was made of about 70% reclaimed and recycled materials.
Upstairs are two toilet rooms with two toilets. We have one sitting toilet and one squatting toilet. Both of them have a urine separator that channels the urine through piping into a big IBC tank from where we can use it by diluting it with water and spread around the land to fertilize it. Read more about the structure and the system in our blog post:
The Greywater systems
To utilize the water that comes from our showers and sinks, we channel it into a banana circle. Bananas are very heavy feeders and also need a lot of water to be productive. Feeding them our wastewater is a great way to turn waste into a valuable food source.
The Land of Gaia Ashram
Our aim is to regenerate the land and help Mother Earth and all her beings to thrive. From nature’s perspective, Gaia Ashram is in the establishing phase. The land we are regenerating is the size of 6 hectares and used to be a rice field around 7 years ago with degraded soils and pretty much nothing on it.
Now, after about 6 years, we can see the land is restoring itself and transforming, pioneering species are doing their work, native trees are coming up again, and we assist nature or Gaia in its self-restorative ability.
This thriving ecosystem now gives the land of Gaia Ashram a beautiful scenery that is full of trees and plants, ponds to swim in, wildlife, and loads of places to hang out and reconnect with Mother Gaia.
เจริญสติ Awareness Practice
