A routine forms when you hunker down in one place, when you pick a spot and decide “hey, I’m going to live here; not just travel through, but live here.” Is it safe to admit I thought the routine and normalcy would still elude me? Coming to Chiang Mai was the next leg in my …
Tucked away into a small corner of a local coffee shop, I’m watching you and you don’t even realize it. The curiously strong coffee clutched in my fist makes me look just like you, but instead I’m listening, assessing, judging, and filing away my observations. You’re telling a story, and I’m watching the way you …
If you’ve ever wondered what Chiang Mai, Thailand will feel like during the zombie apocalypse then hit the streets of the old city, inside the moat, around 9:00am on the Saturday of the city’s Flower Festival Parade. The parade starts at 8:00am just outside of the moat, near Warorot Market (Kad Luang), and the rapid …
So, I’ve started taking Thai lessons—just one class so far, and yet I’ve come to this ripe conclusion: I may have been a little crazy in thinking I could learn Thai. Thai is hard. (And I swear, I wasn’t saying that in a whiny voice …) I’m living in Thailand for four months and that …
Hot mid-day sunshine baked the streets and cast a white glare over everything. With the sun high overhead, the umbrellas popped in full color. A riot of rich reds and lush purples spilled into the streets. Unlike some Thai festivals, where the crush of bodies becomes unbearable, Bo Sang’s annual Umbrella Festival is an intimate, …
And so it is that I prep once again to leave the United States. My bags are slumped beside me, a crisply new book (Gun, Germs, and Steel) in my backpack waiting for my endless airport layovers and my anal-retentively neat morning checklist ready to see me on my way with all my power cords, …
The time has come,’ the Walrus said,`To talk of many things:Of shoes — and ships — and sealing-wax —Of cabbages — and kings —And why the sea is boiling hot —And whether pigs have wings.’ This fragment of a Lewis Carroll poem wandered into my wayward thoughts as I sat down to write tonight; I often …
Travel experiences begin to blend and morph under the constant stress of “newness” when you’re on a long-term trip. When I traveled around the world for a year, even though my pace was slower than some, I went too fast to process all the moments and sites—that proved true at the Pak Ou Caves near …