In
Nepal there is a tree with
beautiful five petaled
flowers. They
smell of
jasmine and you can often find them
littering the
ground. The petals are thick almost like
suede. My
bohini (younger sister) told me their name in
Nepali:
chew-ah.
In Cambodia, the same flowers exist. Sitting on one of the highest "peaks" of Angkor Wat, waiting for the sunset, Sing (a local novice from Siem Reap) told me their name in Khmer (Cambodian): jom-pai.
In Thailand, the flower also appears. Stopping in at a chemist, I spoke with the nice woman behind the counter. She told me that the name of the flower in Thai is: lon-tome.
True to the saying, while not roses, they smell just as sweet.
Little nibble of Thai trivia:
The woman in the chemists told me that these trees were not planted around homes because the word lon-tome is very close to another Thai word which means unhappiness. You will find the trees around wats, however