There are so many reasons to travel. Every person can find that one thing that drives them to go out and see the world. Hard working office workers want a break from their routine and just relax somewhere. Many people treat landmarks and views like Pokémon and want to catch them all. Meanwhile, there are also others who like to wander out and see places hardly seen by many – at least not on social media. As for me, I’m just content to just sit down and have a chat with some random stranger from a random part of the world. I’m happiest when I get to hear how others live their lives, experience things I’ve never experienced before and like things I didn’t think I’d like. I get a lot of surprised reactions when I say I’m staying in Chiang Mai for three weeks and even more when they learn that I have not yet seen the places people come here to see.
I arrived in Chiang Mai last Friday. I immediately went to a cafe – the same cafe where I’m writing this blog now – to get breakfast with a friend I made on Reddit and two Dutch siblings he met on the train. They went on to explore while I slept in my hostel for the entire day. I’m not even ashamed I did this; I think this is my thing now.
Come night time, I used Couchsurfing hangouts to go party with a bunch of people at the party place to be for foreigners in Chiang Mai called Zoe in Yellow. Only three of us came while the others flaked. The other guy ended up going home early as well. This left me and Karl alone to go on a bar crawl. Turns out he was in Chiang Mai checking the scene because he’s trying to be a digital nomad – surprise! Just as things were getting crazy at Zoe in Yellow (an impromptu dance battle broke out between drunken tourists and a beggar), we headed to the next bar called Spicy. Karl and I traded stories and frustrations working in Finance. We found ourselves stepping outside the bar with our beers and talk about our careers and life plans instead of dancing with the women in the bar. When that bar closed for the night, we headed to another bar in Nimman. Bars technically have to close at midnight. You just have to look for the places that operate past midnight discretely. In the unnamed bar in Nimman, this South Asian girl tourist pulled us to the dance floor with our Jägerbombs in hand. Whoever you are, I didn’t get your name but you’re a star!
Predictably, I ended up sleeping all day at the hostel after partying in the wee hours of the morning. As soon as the sun set, like clockwork, I turned on hangouts again where a Filipina asked to get dinner. She, of course, was a digital nomad working in marketing. We grabbed some street food at a nearby night market where Karl decided to join us. The quick street food dinner hangout quickly became a party hangout as lots of other couchsurfers decided to join us and we inevitably ended up in Zoe in Yellow once again. We were joined by Saumya, who was born in India but lived most of his life in Europe and the US. He recently quit his silicon valley tech job to — you guessed it – be a digital nomad. Shortly after Saumya told us practically the entirety of his life for the past few months, Josh joined us. He’s an American but currently lives and works in India. He’s been biking around Southeast Asia including Vietnam, which is probably the craziest place to ride a motorcycle. The group continued on to Spicy after Zoe in Yellow closed with even more people joining the hangout I started. I decided to retire for the night to avoid a third day of sleeping in.
Most of my week was spent walking around the Old Town looking at temples, walking through markets, looking for cafes and trying to work or procrastinate. I found myself going to an elephant sanctuary recommended by a Hungarian guy from my hostel. That place is probably the most ethical tour to see elephants in Chiang Mai. The ideal way to see elephants is from far away and in the jungle watching them roam free and just be elephants. This particular place let us interact with the elephants but the elephants mostly got their food from the jungle and we mainly just followed them around and watch them forage. We also hand fed the elephants some bananas but according to our guide, the bananas are mainly just treats for them and not their main food, which they take from the jungle. We also joined the elephants for their mud bath and helped them scrub their backs. Things got a bit dangerous here as the because the baby (8 years old) elephant was too excited. We were advised to only stand near the baby’s back when she lies down in the mud because she often kicks around and splashes at the mud with her trunk. We were also advised not to stand between the baby and her mother because the baby could run to her mother at any moment. Another tip I have is to never stand behind the elephants where they couldn’t see you. I did this and the mother elephant stepped on my foot. I pushed her until she realized what was happening and raised her foot. Good thing this happened in the mud or my foot would have gotten crushed by a 3,500 kg elephant.
Between tinder dates and meeting up with internet friends, I think the highlight of my week was meeting Kiril. We met at a Couchsurfing event where we talked about travel, music, choirs, social issues, geopolitics and a host of other topics. He sympathized with Ebony and me when we shared how we just quit our finance jobs to start traveling and how we were still living off our Finance money. We decided to meet again to go to the Saturday night market where he bought stuff to take back to South America and we just talked. He’s probably the closest thing to a soulmate I’ve had during this trip. People probably feel that way around him because he’s incredibly smart and can talk about almost any topic. It’s sad that I’ll probably never see him again.
Next week, I’m going for a short trip to Pai!
