Trying Freedom

As I sold my house before starting this journey, I had always been open to the idea of potentially relocating long-term to another country, after spending another 3 weeks in Koh Tao since my last blog and feeling exactly the same about it as I did then, I’m confident that I could do at least 6 months there and it’s been the only place I’ve had that feeling so far… I’ll definitely be back.

I’ve also started working to the tune of 2 days per week and I thought that poor WiFi on the island would probably be the only thing stopping me, however, thanks to 5G and Elon Musk, the WiFi is consistently better than it is back home but I’m not sure if I should be too surprised there.

Being in the same place for a while gave me the chance to make some friends who I could have more of a conversation with than the typical hostel conversation of “Where have you been, where are you going, oh that’s all exactly the same as me what a small world”, which is so refreshing because although it’s great to stay in hostels and save yourself some money that is very much the theme for me and to be honest, it’s draining and I’d probably go as far as to say is my least favourite thing about travelling so far.

Nevertheless, given that I want to be back in Europe at the start of September for a family wedding, I felt that I had to get some more exploring around Asia before I head back so as not to waste the airfare I spent to get out here in the first place, but not before a final Scuba trip complete with a diving case for the GoPro this time.

With that it was time for the next destination, Chiang Mai, this was pretty much a pit stop on route to Pai which was pretty much the other destination which is raved about online next to Koh Tao, so I thought it had to be one for me to go and see… reluctantly I might add since I was so content on the island.

I had one night there before getting a 2-hour minivan to Pai for two days, so it really felt like I was getting back to the backpacker life and definitely felt like a shock to the system even being in a city, regardless, I realise that these really aren’t first world problems so sucked it up and continued on.

Most of the popular attractions of Pai can be seen on a half-day tour, but wanting to make the most of the only full day I had there I decided to book the full-day tour, they neglected to tell me this only has one extra destination, a local hot spring which was massively underwhelming but don’t worry, we also had to somehow spend 2 hours there, I lasted nearly an hour before heading back to the tour guide.

The rest of the day was busy, only spending around 45 minutes at each destination but they all felt very out of place for me, they had nothing to do with Thai culture and were all very gimmicky for example a random house with a coffee shop next to it, the saving grace for me was the Bamboo bridge which did make for some great photos but still gimmicky, including a local farmer offering rides on homemade stilts or a few shots on a wooden crossbow for a tip.

Not forgetting the final visit of the day to the canyon which has to be the most popular of all of the attractions, unfortunately, we didn’t get a clear sky sunset but still an incredible experience.

I was glad to be heading back to Chiang Mai afterwards, I had a few days here and booked a nice Airbnb to help me get back to some normality and eat as much Khao Soi as possible before heading to Bangkok for two days… easing myself into the chaos of big cities.

As for Bangkok, I arrived and immediately fell onto the side of people that don’t like the city because of the chaos I already expected that you cannot escape simply down to the scale of the place, I mean it’s huge and in my head, I still felt used to an island that takes 30 minutes to drive end to end.

After a full day exploring including the Mahanakhon SkyWalk and Chinatown, I have to say that I was converted and did actually enjoy it, I still don’t think I’d suggest spending longer than a couple of days here and I wouldn’t go out of your way if it wasn’t part of a layover or something like that but I did enjoy it as a whole, especially being in a big city at night, something about the city coming alive with all of the lights around me.

After nearly two months with only one month initially planned it’s time to head to the next destination, Hanoi, Vietnam.