Ajarn Keng® grew up in a small town in the north of Thailand called Nakhon Sawan. As a young boy, he was always drawing and sketching and clearly had a very natural, artistic talent. However, traditionally children in Thailand, and in fact all of Asia, are taught from a young age to respect and follow their parents’ dreams and desires for them. Ajarn Keng®‘s family wanted him to become a doctor and he did in fact study medicine at university in Bangkok.
In his final year of studying, his father, who Ajarn Keng® was extremely close to, sadly passed away. Within Thai tradition, this meant Ajarn Keng® was now free to follow his own path and follow his own dreams, which was to become a tattoo artist. When he was a young boy, he was regularly sent to the temple on the weekends, by his parents who wanted to install traditional Thai values and discipline into him. They hoped the temple and the monks would teach him to focus on his studies and stop him from always drawing and sketching. The high Monk at his local temple recognized Ajarn Keng®‘s natural talent, and encouraged it by allowing Ajarn Keng® to paint his beautiful creations onto the walls of the temple. Some of his designs are actually still there and if any of our customers ever travel to Nakhon Sawan you will be able to see original Thai style designs, drawn by Ajarn Keng®, from around the age of eight upwards. Whilst studying at the temple every weekend, Ajarn Keng® developed a strong friendship with the high monk who took him under his wing and taught him everything he knew about Buddhism.
It is here where Ajarn Keng® studied the ancient Buddhist scripts and became proficient at tattooing and performing the traditional Sak Yants. It is here, in a small local temple in the north of Thailand, where Ajarn Keng® became a fully qualified Ajarn, a master of Sak Yants. I’ll go further into that on another blog. However, when Ajarn Keng® stopped medicine and started to focus on becoming a full-time tattoo artist, his creativity took over and he became a tattoo artist in the more traditional sense by tattooing his own custom drawings and replicating popular styles such as Maori. He set up his own studio in Nakhon Sawan and switched from bamboo tattooing to machine tattooing.
On the 26th of December 2004, a devastating tsunami struck Thailand, causing Ajarn Keng® to lose one of his dearest friends on the island of Koh Phi Phi. He decided to travel to Koh Phi Phi to show his respects and also to help rebuild the island. Whilst here he was offered a job as a bamboo tattoo artist. He wanted to stay a while, so he put away his machines, and once again took out his bamboo sticks. It was here where he met his wife, Lauren, who was diving at the time and helping with the massive job of cleaning up the oceans and beaches. Despite being unable to communicate and having to use a dictionary to look up and translate one word at a time, there was an instant attraction. So much so that they were married 5 months later in November 2005.
The following year they moved to Koh Phangan and it is here where the idea of The Bamboo Rooms was born with the idea of moving to England to establish it. Lauren missed home and wanted to share her culture with Ajarn Keng® after having been in Thailand for a few years now and being honored in sharing his culture for so long. In 2007 they finally received Ajarn Keng®‘s visa and moved to England and the first Bamboo Rooms was established with the help of Lauren’s mum, in a small city in the north of England called Shipley. Here they remained for seven years. Anyone who knows Ajarn Keng®, knows that he loves England and didn’t want to leave, but at that time their son was turning five, and needed to go into education, Lauren and Ajarn Keng® wanted to school both their children in Thailand so they could grow up learning both languages, and also with more freedom in a country that hadn’t yet been overrun with technology (and excessive health and safety laws).
They moved back to Thailand and settled on the beautiful island of Koh Samui and The Bamboo Rooms Samui was established which quickly became very successful. However, when Covid came and Thailand closed its borders for two years, the shop in Samui also had to close temporarily. Whilst Covid was very hard for everyone in Thailand because there was little to no help, Ajarn Keng® was very lucky and able to travel and work whilst bouncing around countries, somehow managing to keep himself and his family afloat amongst the huge stress.
This eventually led to The Bamboo Rooms being reestablished in England, in Lauren’s hometown, a beautiful Yorkshire town called Otley and now Ajarn Keng® is back where he belongs, in Yorkshire, with his beloved pork pies!