Chulaphorn 10th village, Betong. The Blue Zone.

January 06, 2025

My second visit to this 'longevity' village on 31st December 2024. This time, we used tandem bike to cycle from Betong town to Chulaphorn 10th village, 30km, 534m elevation gain . Mainly Kampung route, cemented road surface, except the last 3km epic trail where we hv to push through off road climbing terrain for about 300 meters. The long house resort was very clean and comfortable. No aircond needed as the atmosphere in this village is cooling, surrounded by deep forest. I am glad to hv met the Kampung leader ChengDong 陈东 and thank him for making our trip possible by staying in the long house. Aunty Ming Ming, 85 yr old, welcome us and organise kitchen food as well as the forest walk to see those big trees . Food that involved with fish and chicken are to be waited for some hours because they need to catch the fish from the pond and also chicken from the home cage. Slaughter, cleaning and finally cooking. As for the vegetable, almost all the household planted their own vegetables and selling partially into the market. Really impressive in my opinion, a kind of BLUE Zone living approach. All the community is living nearby with hilly terrain which means everyone has to walk a lot with adequate cardio exercise approach. Many of the people here are at the octogenarian and nonagenarian category with the average age of 80 +-. Although they used to live in the jungle for about 25 years during their turbulence days in the CPM (communist party Malaya) , they told me it's enough and they are glad to be back into the reality, civilised world . We do avoid too much conversation into the jungle fighting days as it has so much sad story presumably.

The living here is kind of simple. No birthday celebration as everyday is just another day, mentioned by aunty Ming Ming who turns 85th years old on 31st December 2024, the same day we visited this village. Nobody celebrates New Year eve here and that leads to a silent night for us, a quiet environment during our dinner at 6.30pm. We hv to request one of the local lady to help us in getting beers from the other nearby village. Finally, we went to bed at about 9.30pm.

The basic SIMPLICITY living with own farmed food source, constant shinrin-yoku fresh air from the forest, could possibly explain why majority of the community here are octogenarian and nonagenarian .