This post was originally published in 2019. It has since been updated for accuracy of links and content. 

For some reason I thought 2018 had been more sedentary than it was; I couldn’t possibly have visited six countries – including six different locations in one of the countries and two in another, in a sense visiting over 11 different places.

Thank goodness I do these annual summaries of where I’ve been; I’d be lost (literally!) without them!

Please enjoy this summary of the places I visited in 2018 along with the adventures (and mis-adventures!) I got up to. Previous annual summaries can be found at the end of this article.

2018 in Summary

14 planes, two ferries, and countless buses and taxis shuttled me between six different countries in 2018. While none of the countries were new to me on the whole, I discovered some new haunts. The biggest surprise of the year (a surprise to me as much as anybody else) was that I set up a home base in my home town of Toronto.

And still, I traveled over 51,148 kilometers (31,782 miles), which puts 2018 in 4^th place for biggest distances traveled in the last 12 years, while remaining on the lower end of country counts for me. (Good thing I don’t actually care about ticking off countries for the sake of ticking them off)!

Here’s how 2018 rolled:

JANUARY: Chiang Mai (Thailand)

I rang in the new year in my cozy apartment in Chiang Mai Thailand where I had been since late November 2017.

While it was my second visit to Chiang Mai (the first being in 2008), it was almost unrecognizable from my previous visit. This was due in part to my staying in another part of town which had (since 2008) blossomed into “the digital nomad centre of the universe”. During my first visit, the term “digital nomad” hadn’t even yet been coined.

Chiang Mai, 10 Years Later: The Impossible Search

How to Find an Apartment in Chiang Mai

Chiang Mai’s Nimman: The Unapologetic Bubble

FEBRUARY: Hoi An (Vietnam)

My first trip to Vietnam was in 2011 as the final stage of completing the Ultimate Train Challenge which was a crazy mission involving 30 days of trains from Lisbon to Saigon. I fell in love with the food and the people, and vowed to return.

So in 2018, inspired by some verbal and written accounts of Hoi An’s beauty and friendliness towards digital nomads, the hop/skip/jump was made from Thailand.

In the areas of food and friendliness, I wasn’t disappointed with my return visit. Despite my complete inability to communicate with the locals, I felt an uncommonly friendly vibe and enjoyed miming with a few of the “market ladies” from whom I regularly bought my produce.

February 2018 also coincided with the Vietnamese New Year, which was a mixed blessing. The upshot was an invitation from my landlord to a family feast that was one of those “victories” for travelers (well at least, for me) in participating in an inherently local festivity. While the evening required extensive use of Google Translate (one of my go-to smartphone apps), it was one where I felt an almost unprecedented level of warmth and welcome from a local family.

The bad news for the month was the weather, which involved solid cloud cover and periodic rain for the entire month. I didn’t realize how badly the lack of sunshine was affecting me until one day it came out and my disposition changed entirely. Unfortunately by that point, I’d already made onward travel plans since I’d lost the will to live.

6 Weeks in Hoi An, Vietnam

Expat Life in Hoi An

MARCH: Koh Phangan (Thailand)

Since my visit to India in late 2017, I had been wrestling with a host of physical and emotional challenges that, by this time, had bled me dry. So visiting the southern Thai island of Koh Phangan was in part a sun-seeking experience, and in part a chance to participate in an intensive detox retreat which I hoped would be a way to hit “reset” on my body (and spirit) and clear it of the variety of ailments it was suffering from.

All I can say is I hope to return to Koh Phangan one day and not do a detox retreat. While I’m sure it was beneficial on the whole, it was a slugfest the entire way, and an exercise in irony and deprivation on this idyllic (even hedonistic) island.

All Life is Suffering: A Month in Koh Phangan, Thailand – incidentally one of my favourite and more entertaining pieces of writing

APRIL: Melbourne (Australia)

This detour Down Under may come as a surprise to some readers, as I never wrote about it. It was “part two” in my attempt to recover from the physical and emotional effects of what I (by this time) realized was a severe case of burnout.

Long-time readers will know that I spent 1.5 years living outside of Melbourne Australia back in 2008/09, and in that time I criss-crossed the country a few times (by campervan and then by train), survived their worst-ever natural disaster, had my first breakup on the road, and other adventures.

During that first stint I befriended a couple with whom I stayed in touch over the years, and who (knowing of my burnout) invited me to stay with them as a personalized healing retreat of sorts.

While I didn’t know this couple very well, the invitation was serendipitous, and I immediately booked a ticket. It was one of the best decisions I made, as their loving care and regular healing treatments in their clinic was instrumental – if not life-changing – for me.

It gave me the rest I sorely needed after almost 10 months of bouncing around just as many Asian countries, recovery from a variety of physical ailments, and strength to start pursuing some business and personal projects over the course of the rest of the year.

Somewhere in all this recovery, I started reflecting on what I’d learned in the last 12 years of travel. Here it is: one lesson for each year on the road: 12 Truths About Travel – and Life

MAY: NYC (USA), Toronto (Canada), London (England)

My frequent flyer mile prowess allowed me to fly from Melbourne to New York in business class for a grand total of about $600. NYC was a glorified layover enroute to my hometown of Toronto, where I planned to spend the summer.

But not before a bit more traipsing! After dropping my checked luggage in Toronto, I packed a wee bag and hopped on a flight to London for a couple of weeks of staying with some friends who had just bought a lovely house.

It rained. A lot.

JUNE: Hollywood FL (USA), Toronto (Canada)

I’m no stranger to Hollywood (in South Florida), where a dear friend of mine lives and where I have a home base of sorts. So while it’s certainly out-of-the-way between London and Toronto, I detoured anyway to visit for a couple of weeks.

JULY-OCTOBER: Toronto (Canada)

I love summers in Toronto, and the summer of 2018 was a glorious one by all accounts. Even locals (who are renowned for their weather-driven running commentary) had little to gripe about.

What was surprising was how a simple plan to spend a couple of months there evolved into getting an apartment and setting up a home base. While I never thought I would live in Toronto again, it clicked for me on a variety of levels, and I’m pleased to have made the decision.

My Epic Search for a Home Base

NOVEMBER: San Diego, Desert Hot Springs, LA, Palmdale CA (USA)

While I would have liked more time to enjoy my new place in Toronto, I have this thing about winter: I don’t do it. I grew up with it, and I loathe it. I spent the last 12 years hemisphere-hopping to avoid it, and my cozy apartment wasn’t about to sway me from maintaining my record.

So, coincidentally (or not), on the day the temperatures plummeted and it started to snow in Toronto in early November, I boarded a plane for San Diego to visit a friend. We did a wee road trip to Desert Hot Springs and Joshua Tree – which was my first taste of the American desert.

From San Diego, I bussed up to Palmdale (near LA) to visit with my boyfriend’s family; included was a little trip into LA to film a video and do a bit of sightseeing.

DECEMBER: Hollywood FL (USA) (again)

Can’t see the picture? Click here to watch this video on YouTube.

One of the reasons why Hollywood has been a frequently-visited base for me over the years is because of its proximity to Central and South America where I’ve spent the majority my time since 2014. (Well, that, and my friend there is super-cool and I have my own room at her house).

So while my visit to Hollywood in June was a detour between London and Toronto, my visit in December was perfectly enroute to Guatemala (!), where I’ll be spending the first quarter of 2019.

Summary Notes: Progress! 

In the summary of my 2017 annual travel report, I wrote the following:

It’s like every single aspect of my life has been thrown up in the air (lifestyle, location, health, relationships, career, etc), and I’m watching all the pieces float around and am waiting to see where they land. It’s simultaneously exciting and agonizing. 

If 2017 was my unraveling, then 2018 was my year for putting everything back together again (well, with a bit more unraveling for good measure in the first quarter or so of the year – as was evidenced in Koh Phangan).

In addition to my personal recovery, you’ll read soon in my annual income report for 2018 that my online business also underwent a significant overhaul and recovery process.

It was a year for many big changes, both personal and professional, not the least of which was setting up a new home base in my home town. After a dozen years of exploring expat life in a many different places, I’m enjoying the close proximity of family and friends when I’m in town (which, in the coming years, I expect will be a little over half of each year).

I own a couch now! And desk, and a bed, and a tv. And I have Canadian health care again! Most importantly, I have a place to return to after every trip, to unpack, unwind, and assimilate my experiences. Already, my travels feel lighter – literally and figuratively.

Looking into my magic crystal ball, I would say that 2019 will be a year for more transitions and transformations. I’m just not sure how yet. Let’s see! It’s far from the end of the trail for me…..rather, it’s the start of a new one.

Prior Travel Summaries

My First Four Years of Full-Time Travel (2007-2010, including Canada, Hawaii, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Australia, USA, Mexico, New Zealand, Spain, Germany, France, England, Scotland, Ireland, Nepal)

What I did in 2011 (13 countries, 73,000 kms, including New Zealand, Canada, USA, Sweden, Portugal, Spain, Switzerland, Czech Republic, Ukraine, Russia, China, Vietnam, Grenada)

What I did in 2012 (8 countries and 20,000 miles, including Grenada, St. Martin, BVIs, USA, Switzerland, France, England, Canada)

What I did in 2013 (12 countries and 29,000 miles, including Grenada, USA, Canada, England, Scotland, Holland, Norway, Denmark, Germany, Ukraine, France, Panama)

What I did in 2014 (7 countries and 34,000 miles, including Panama, USA, Canada, Peru, Spain, Gibraltar, Italy)

What I did in 2015 (6 countries and 35,000 miles, including Peru, Colombia, USA, Costa Rica, Canada, Bolivia)

What I did in 2016 (5 countries and 30,000 miles, including Peru, USA, Canada, Ireland, and Ecuador)

What I did in 2017 (10 countries and 29,000 miles, including USA, Ecuador, Canada, Japan, Indonesia, Hong Kong, Macau, Sri Lanka, India, and Thailand)

This post 2018: 6 Countries, 32k Miles, And Some BIG Changes appeared first on The Professional Hobo. Please click through to read it in full!

If only I knew at that time the degree to which I would suffer – truly suffer, even optionally and at great expense – in Koh Phangan Thailand, just a few months later.

Phase One: The Irony

As if the irony of observing that all life is suffering while eating ice cream wasn’t poignant enough, the irony of being depressed on arrival to a place like Koh Phangan was ludicrous.

I mean, it’s a tropical island in the south of Thailand. In fact, it’s the tropical island of tropical islands in the south of Thailand; one of the more hedonistic places you can visit, as is evidenced by the full moon party culture of travelers drinking buckets (literally, buckets) full of alcohol and ingesting all kinds of other “stuff” on offer while dancing the night away on the beach.

Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but that’s not why I was in Koh Phangan. There is another side to the island; literally, the opposite side of the island, in a place called Srithanu where the pace is quiet and the focus is on another kind of hedonism; that of spirituality, healing, and general well-being. Throw a stone and you’ll either hit a yoga shala, tribal clothing store, or vegan restaurant. Visit Zen Beach at sunset and you’ll find drum circles and poi dancers; walk a little further up the beach and strip down to enjoy some (illegal) nudism. Sit long enough at Cookies Cafe with a coffee and you’ll surely overhear somebody sharing their thoughts on enlightenment.

Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but that’s not why I was in Koh Phangan either. Hell, I don’t really know why I was in Koh Phangan. I’d heard through the grapevine a few times that Srithanu was the place to be, and after the relatively dismal weather I experienced in Hoi An, I needed some sun and fun. Koh Phangan is also informally known as “sticky island”; it’s another one of those places that people come to visit for weeks, and end up staying for years.

So there I was, enjoying the idyllic sunsets, delicious Thai food, cheap cost of living, and even fast internet. All life is suffering. And I was. Suffering, that is. Suffering from a continued depression that inspired a total life crisis, all of which came to a head somewhere in India when butter was being poured into my eyes. (That’s another story).

Ah, the irony. To actually be suffering, in paradise. Little did I know, the suffering hadn’t even begun.

Phase Two: The Agony

A friend who (like me) had spent extensive time in countries where the water isn’t potable told me she had also been feeling depressed, along with a host of other physical symptoms we shared in common. In a series of colonic hydrotherapy sessions, she discovered she had an enormous population of parasites, bacterias, and other unwelcome hitchhikers that were wreaking havoc in her gut and causing many of her seemingly unrelated health issues.

This inspired me to research what forms of similar healing I could experience in Koh Phangan. As a mecca for just about any modality of healing you can imagine, I wasn’t disappointed to discover a few places offering intensive detox programs that promised to cure me of just about anything. These detox programs involved many days of fasting, combined with colemas twice per day. (A colema – if you are currently scratching your head, as I was – is best described as a hybrid between an enema and colonic hydrotherapy).

Now. You may recall I had a slightly traumatic enema experience in India. (It’s an amusing read). So perhaps you’re wondering why I might be prepared to do something like that again. But, desperate times call for desperate measures, and I was tired of feeling like shit. Perhaps if I cleared some of it out of me, I’d feel better.

And that’s how I found myself suffering – really suffering – for 11 days of detox hell.

Actually, the first two and last two days of the detox didn’t count towards the agony; they were my days to ease in and out of the program, while drinking liver cleansing juices and eating delicious fruit and vegetable salads. The seven days of fasting (and colemas) in between were the meat of this shit sandwich.

I’ll spare you the gory details of the minutia of my daily routine, save for a few surprising occurrences.

First of all, I wasn’t hungry. As somebody who believes wholeheartedly in eating regularly, this came as a huge surprise to me. But it was probably the constant ingestion of detox “shakes” (prior to arriving I had envisioned these being lovely fruity refreshing drinks; if water with bentonite clay and psyllium husk is fruity to you then you’ll be in heaven) five times per day, with supplements and herbal detox pills in between. Given an additional five capsules/day I also swallowed as an optional anti-parasite treatment, I had no chance to be hungry; I was full of water (and clay, and psyllium husk, and supplements). Once a day I was given coconut water, and the highlight of each day was the “detox soup”: vegetable broth.

Instead of actual hunger, I discovered (as many detox retreat participants do) another type of hunger: mental hunger. I missed chewing. I missed smelling my food. And I missed the bonds created by people, the transcendence of culture and language around the world, all facilitated by food. One of the reasons I started traveling full-time was to “break bread around dinner tables around the world”. And now, all I could do was dream about cheesy garlic bread.

Ah, cheesy garlic bread. I can’t even remember the last time I ate cheesy garlic bread, but for the duration of the detox program, it beckoned. Somewhere around day three, I was having a particularly tough time. I laid in a hammock feeling sorry for myself, outside the main hub of the retreat centre, which also served as a restaurant. I watched a guy sipping coffee (oh god, coffee), and eating fruit with yogurt and granola on top: my favourite go-to breakfast for years. I started obsessing about the granola. Knowing this would do me no good, I closed my eyes and tried to ignore the fluffy clouds of granola floating through my mind.

And then I heard it, wafting to me from a conversation at another table: “garlic bread with bubbling melted cheese on top”. I have no idea what they were talking about, and all further conversation faded into oblivion. The seed had been planted, and out of it grew a complete infatuation with the idea of cheesy garlic bread, which stuck with me through the rest of the agonizing detox retreat.

No, hunger wasn’t an issue. And even more surprisingly, neither were the colemas. In fact, I came to quite enjoy the feeling of clearing myself out, complete with a slightly morbid fascination with what was coming out of me.

But everything else was an issue. I was weak. Lightheaded all the time. My muscles atrophied. My flexibility stopped; it didn’t just get worse – it stopped altogether. I could barely fold forward to touch my knees, much less my toes or put my palms on the floor, as I typically can. I was irritable. Emotional. I was in agony.

I kept waiting for the tipping point. In the daily check-in meetings with other participants, it seemed that everybody eventually hit a point where everything got better. Where energy levels actually increased, and people started talking about extending their fast because they felt so fantastic and light and energetic. For some people it was after day three. For others, day five. My boyfriend, who was participating alongside me, barely had any trouble. He even said one day “if I could continue feeling this good, I wouldn’t eat food again.” For me, it never happened. It was a slugfest every single step of the way.

“Are you resisting something?” my boyfriend said one day in the gentlest sweetest voice he could manage, before backing away quickly expecting some sort of physical repercussion for his astute observation. Of course I was. But I had no idea what I was resisting. I had paid (a lot of money) to do this program, and I was committed wholeheartedly to achieving better health and wellness; I saw this detox as a way to hit “reset” on my body and eliminate any possibility that my depression and other symptoms could be related to my gut health.

So, I continued as best I could to surrender to the process. I gave myself permission to hate it. I mentally burst into flames a few times. I cried a lot. And I honoured every step of it as the release of some sort of pent-up emotional shit that needed releasing. While most of the time I like to analyze what I’m letting go of (childhood trauma? Adolescent body issues? Bad relationships?), I gave up. It was too much work. And so I just felt the agony for what it was.

All life is suffering.

Phase Three: The Ecstasy The Massage

I don’t even like papaya. But seconds after I put that piece of papaya into my mouth to break the fast, my world changed. The improvement was marked, sudden, and frankly unbelievable. By midday on the day I broke the fast, I was a new woman. My energy had returned, and then some. I was smiling and laughing. Other detox retreat participants, many of whom had never seen this side of me, didn’t even recognize me.

What was most shocking to me, was the immediate change in my outlook on life. I noticed it reflected in a few emails I composed. Instead of resorting to a stock phrase I’d come to rely on to describe a certain situation – a phrase with both a negative outlook and language – I wrote a different phrase. One more positive and grateful. And then I did it again. And later in the day, again. Without even consciously trying, I had changed my negative paradigm into a positive one.

Was is possible? Could I have kicked my depression by fasting for seven days and (quite literally) clearing out all my shit? I wasn’t ready to drink the evangelical koolaid of detox retreats quite yet, but as the days progressed, it seemed that indeed, the steely grip of depression had loosened.

So it was time to reward myself with a massage.

Massage parlours are everywhere in Thailand – especially anywhere tourists roam. Most of them look the same, with a signboard featuring a long garish menu of prices and services that vary minimally from place to place. But the joint that came recommended to me wasn’t one of these massage parlours. It was a relatively nondescript house at the side of the road. No prices, no billboard-style list of services. Nobody outside beckoning you in for a massage. There were always multiple pairs of shoes out front (indicating customers inside). All good signs.

Words like “divine” and “sublime” had been used to describe these massages, with the quiet caveat that you need to like deep massages. One fellow participant of the detox retreat said he went and was sore for days afterwards, but I discounted his review on account of my assessment that he was a bit “soft”.

Little did I have any idea what I was in for.

I should have known when I walked inside and saw a guy on fire.

He was lying on a bed in the informal waiting room where I was seated, surrounded by three Thai therapists, casually talking as if there wasn’t a guy on fire in front of them. They – patient included – were all chatting away in Thai, while a washcloth doused in some sort of fuel was in flames on the patient’s leg. I watched with wide eyes.

“It’s great for inflammation,” said a Dutch fellow sitting beside me, waiting for his massage. “I got it last week for my foot. Amazing results! But the swelling was back the next day.”

While a quiet inner voice whispered that perhaps the guy on a fire was an omen that I should find another place to get a massage, I was encouraged to stay by the idea that the fellow next to me was a repeat customer (they must be doing something right), and that the guy on fire was Thai (if the locals go, it’s gotta be a good place).

So I peered past the waiting room into the main massage room, from where I could hear various exclamations of pain or pleasure – I couldn’t discern which. It was a long, dark room with one wall lined with Thai massage pads, about ten in all, each a foot apart. Every bed had somebody in some kind of contortion with a look of agony on their face. Though this concerned me, I watched two people as their massages finished, bow with such overwhelming gratitude to their therapists, that I was taken aback. Looking past the agony, I noticed that a large percentage of the patients were also Thai – another great sign I’d come somewhere for “the real deal”.

As a minuscule smiling Thai woman in a pink shirt beckoned to me to come in for my massage, I stepped through the threshold and past the point of no return.

When her opening move was to press on the backs of my legs with the sort of pressure that I thought could only come with the assistance of heavy machinery, I asked her to lighten up the pressure a bit. She laughed. This was not that kind of place.

And so commenced an hour of a kind of agony I’d not before experienced. She walked on me; this woman who couldn’t have weighed more than 90 pounds soaking wet, exhibited the force of an elephant. She poked and pressed and prodded all the “right” spots with hands, fists, elbows, knees, and feet while flattening, stretching, and twisting me. When she wasn’t crushing the air out of me completely, I breathed deeply into the discomfort, while she held the pressure long enough for me to “relax” into it.

Once she and I got into some sort of rhythm, I expanded my awareness into the room. It was chaos. People on either side of me were moaning, some even screaming; mostly in agony, but with just a hint pleasure mixed in there so I couldn’t be sure.

“It sounds like a torture chamber in here, except everybody seems to be enjoying it,” exclaimed a guy a few beds down who was as surprised as I was at what was happening, to his own body and the bodies around him. At this, everybody laughed. Pain or not, the mood in the room was lighthearted on the whole, and we often collectively chuckled at the ridiculousness of others’ (and our own) cries of misery. The therapists had their own schticks too; it seemed like a running joke to them that people would come in such droves to be manipulated so violently, and would even keep coming back for more.

“Why do I do this to myself?” exclaimed one particularly vocal woman who was getting an oil massage next to me and sounded in inordinate amounts of pain. “Over and over again?”

Coming out the other side of the massage experience, I felt like I’d escaped with my life. Although I experienced moments of excruciating pain, I’d had worse in certain shiatsu sessions. In fact, a part of me kept waiting for it to worsen; to feel the sort of pain the screaming girl next to me apparently was. Instead it didn’t happen, and I felt grateful for my “elephant weakling” of a therapist. So grateful, that I too, like many before me, bowed deeply in gratitude for having survived. I even felt better for having gone.  All life is suffering.

All Life is Suffering: The Final Chapter

My last week in Koh Phangan was spent slowly and sweetly introducing my digestive system to different foods again; at the same time a sort of crash course to prepare my body for the onslaught of travel ahead, where I couldn’t guarantee what kind of food I’d be eating, nor when, nor where. Travel can be tough on the body, and I felt like the detox retreat was like hitting “reset” on everything. I hoped not to lose the benefits of all I’d achieved in those agonizing seven days.

But I also had to have another green curry before leaving Thailand, and Asia. I’d been bouncing around Asia for ten months, and almost as many countries of agony and ecstasy:

• I learned why I could never live in Japan.
• I visited Kuta in Bali to see a Balinese healer (an oxymoron in action).
• I regretted not bringing my hiking shoes to Hong Kong.
• I later evacuated Bali, and learned why people cry on television in Jakarta.
• I went to heaven – and hell – and hit rock bottom in India.
• I suffered through a luxurious life in Chiang Mai.
• I lost the sun – along with my will to live – in Hoi An.

And I embraced, even embodied, the irony of my own suffering on the idyllic palm-tree lined hedonistic island of Koh Phangan. Perhaps I even let go of my suffering, just a little.

But you’d better believe, every time I have a mouthful of delicious ice cream, the first words out of my mouth will always be “all life is suffering.”

Where to Stay in Koh Phangan

On arrival to Koh Phangan, my boyfriend and I stayed at the delightful Loyfa Natural Resort, which was ideally located and well-equipped for comfort and relaxation. Even after we moved elsewhere, we returned to Loyfa’s restaurant for excellent meals and their spa for amazing treatments. 

But renting a place at Loyfa by the month was going to be cost-prohibitive, so we employed the same tactics we used in Chiang Mai to find an apartment for $300/month. 

Activities in Koh Phangan

As I said in the beginning of this article, Koh Phangan is a hedonistic place. So enjoy yourself! Check out some of the most popular things to do in Koh Phangan:

This post All Life is Suffering: A Month in Koh Phangan, Thailand appeared first on The Professional Hobo. Please click through to read it in full!

It was cheap, and easy to find.

But there are a few tricks to doing it right; here’s what I learned about finding apartments in Chiang Mai.

SEE ALSO: How to Book Monthly Digital Nomad Accommodation (alternatives to AirBnB)

Click here to watch this video on YouTube.

Chiang Mai Apartments: How to Find an Apartment in Chiang Mai

As I expounded on in another article, Chiang Mai is the Digital Nomad Centre of the Universe. More specifically, the Nimman area of Chiang Mai is the beating heart of this digital nomad headquarters. (See also: Chiang Mai’s Nimman: The Unapologetic Bubble)

Hundreds (if not thousands) of digital nomads descend upon Chiang Mai every year, often staying for months at a time. Many even come for a month or two, and fall in love with the culture/amenities/social scene/cost of living so much, they stay for much much longer. Similar to Bali, it’s one of those places that sucks you in and doesn’t always spit you back out.

The Thai people are very smart and incredibly entrepreneurial; instead of resisting the onslaught of visitors holding wads of Euros/Dollars and craving some modern comforts at affordable prices, they welcome them. As such, an entire industry of serviced apartments exists. These furnished apartments are available for monthly rentals, often with lower rates if you commit for six months or a year.

Here’s how to find an apartment in Chiang Mai, and get a good price while you’re at it.

Step One: Book Only Your First Few Nights Before Arriving

Although I had to lean into a lot of discomfort, I resisted the urge to book an apartment (through AirBnB) for the duration of my stay prior to arrival. Given what I knew of the cost of living in Chiang Mai, the online prices made no sense. I knew I could do better. So I just booked my first three nights, specifically at a place called The Dome, which is conveniently located within walking distance of both the old city and the heart of the Nimman district.

Not convinced The Dome is in the right area or will suit your needs? Check out some of the best deals for Chiang Mai accommodation here: 

Now. I found my apartment in half a day, so I didn’t even need three full nights in a hotel. But if you’re arriving in Chiang Mai during the peak season for digital nomads and tourists (typically December/January), you might not find an apartment as quickly. Depending on your budget and criteria, three nights may be more than enough. Or perhaps you’ll need a bit longer.

Step Two: Get a SIM Card

Although most of the apartments I looked at had staffed reception areas, apparently some just have noticeboards with phone numbers to call. Either way, you’ll need a phone number for the reservation and leasing process. SIM cards are cheap and cheerful in Thailand, with great data plans. I bought my SIM card in Bangkok airport while waiting for my luggage to arrive on the carousel.

(See also: Cell Phone Travel Basics: International Phone Plans, SIM Cards, and More)

Step Three: Take a Walk

The best place to find out where you want to live is to walk around. If you prefer, you can cover more ground on a bicycle or a scooter. (Me? I’m not inclined to rent scooters in foreign countries after suffering a near-fatal accident on one in the Caribbean, and especially not in big cities on arrival. But if you’re more comfortable with the idea, knock yourself out – figuratively speaking, that is).

Step Four: Find Apartment Buildings in Chiang Mai Neighborhoods

There are a few neighbourhoods that have groupings of condos that typically have an allotment of apartments for short/medium-term rentals. One of these neighbourhoods is just north of the Maya Lifestyle Shopping Centre. Green Hill is a popular complex, as is PromT and Moda. Further south are some other places, such as Hillside (which is near to a co-working space I quite enjoyed frequenting called Mana).

Keep your eyes peeled not only for buildings themselves, but if these don’t stick out at you, look for signs; anything from billboard ads to small handwritten signs at intersections will direct you to buildings where you can rent an apartment.

Perhaps you’d prefer to find a place outside of the Nimman area, closer to the old city, or the University, or the “mountain”. If you have a scooter, you’ll have more possibilities. Take a drive, and also, ask around. There are also a couple of websites that have listings for apartments, such as Perfect Homes and Faz Waz (Faz Waz being a tool you can use to find places all over Thailand), and you can always lurk one of the Facebook Groups dedicated to expats; I found the Chiang Mai Digital Nomads group to be useful on a variety of levels.

Step Five: Ask/Call

Like I said, many of these buildings are condominiums that have staffed reception areas. This makes it dead easy; simply walk in and ask if they have any vacancies. The pricing is usually standardized and the process simple. If there is a vacancy that suits your needs, ask to see the apartment (this should go without saying).

Other buildings may not have a reception area, but instead a notice board at the front where unit owners can post their own vacancies with a phone number to call. Have at ‘er.

Step Six: Confirm Fees

Before you commit, make sure you know what you’re getting into. Most apartments require one to two months’ rent as a security deposit, which will be refunded to you when you leave (assuming you haven’t trashed the place).

Rent varies, and is generally on the rise from year to year, as Chiang Mai (and more specifically the Nimman area) increases in popularity. The general rate for a one bedroom furnished apartment in 2017 was 10,000-15,000 Thai baht (about $300-450).

You’re also usually responsible for paying utilities. Find out what the rate is (the rate in my building was 5 baht per kw for electricity, and 35 baht per water unit – in the end it worked out to about 800 baht/month for (a very conservative use of) electricity and 200/month for water. On moving in, make sure you know what the starting meter readings are, and also where the meters are so you can monitor your usage (air conditioning is the killer). There are some horror stories of people being presented with outrageous utility bills on leaving that they couldn’t dispute because they didn’t have enough information nor time to sort it out (with a plane to catch or the like).

In my case, I was also informed that I’d be responsible for a 500 baht cleaning fee on vacating the apartment, and I was also promised that the apartment would be cleaned free of charge prior to moving in (and it was).

Step Seven: Pay a Deposit

To reserve your apartment for the move-in date (if you’re not moving in the same day), you’re going to have to put some cash on the line right away. (For my apartment it was 5,000 Thai Baht – about $150).

On move-in day, the 5,000 became a down payment for the refundable security deposit.

All my fees were payable in cash, so be prepared to make a trip to the ATM.

Step Eight: Move Into Your New Apartment!

…and enjoy! Although this system for how to find an apartment in Chiang Mai works really well in Chiang Mai, it may not work as well in other cities that aren’t as well equipped for short/medium-term renters (aka: digital nomads). More recently, I applied this process to finding an apartment in Hoi An (Vietnam), and I found a dedicated Facebook Group (Hoi An Expats Property – Buy and Rent) to be the most valuable.

Considering I’ve been on the road for over 11 years, you’d think I have more experience finding apartments around the world. Strangely, I don’t. That’s because the vast majority of the time, I have chosen my destinations based on a specific opportunity to go there, which, much of the time, involved free accommodation like house-sitting or volunteering. This made it exponentially easier to get my bearings; all I had to do was arrive and plug myself into whatever community/local neighbourhood awaited me. Not only did this save me a ton of money on accommodation, but it was incredibly rewarding. (See also: How to Get Free Accommodation Around the World)

Although, as I’ve discovered, there’s also something to be said for having your own space without the commitment of volunteering, nor the onus to care for somebody else’s home and pets (which often also restricts your time and movements). It’s all a trade-off, and depends on how you wish to live your life on the road.

Be sure to watch my video on how to find an apartment in Chiang Mai, including a tour of my sweet little pad!

You’ll Also Want to Check Out….

Chiang Mai, 10 Years Later: The Impossible Search

Chiang Mai’s Nimman: The Unapologetic Bubble

Things to do in Chiang Mai

This post How to Find an Apartment in Chiang Mai: A Step-by-Step Guide appeared first on The Professional Hobo. Please click through to read it in full!

And the headquarters within this capital city of digital nomadism is the neighbourhood of Nimman (short for Nimmanhaemin, which is the main street in the area, better known as “Nimman road”). Although I’m sure it existed when I last was in Chiang Mai, I’m willing to bet it wasn’t recognizable to what it is now. A few months prior I was in Ubud (Bali, Indonesia), and sampling my first taste of the digital nomad co-working culture (for somebody who has been called a “pioneer” in the industry, I was mighty late to the party). I wanted to continue this exploration in Chiang Mai.

So, Nimman it was.

Nimman, Created

I’m not exactly sure how Nimman came to be the place it is now. My guess is that it was a trifecta of factors:

1. Nimman is by the University of Chiang Mai. Thus, it is (and probably always was to an extent), a hip and progressive neighbourhood, to keep up with the next generation as it dreams big and comes of age into adulthood.
2. Chiang Mai is developed enough to have infrastructure for things like fast internet, with a cost of living that is affordable for the vast majority of digital nomads who can use currency arbitrage to their advantage. Much of Nimman is new development, which provides a modern look, feel, and most importantly, modern conveniences and comforts (for a fraction of the price that the same amenities would cost in the western world).
3. In 2012, a popular movie came out in China called Lost in Thailand, which featured (among other places) the University of Chiang Mai campus. It has since sparked a tidal wave of Chinese tourists to the area. Apparently they would take tours through the University grounds on tacky “tourist road trains”; something that eventually met with protests on the part of the university students who felt like zoo animals. The Chinese “tourist train” itself may or may not still be operational in the Chiang Mai University grounds, but it sure is proverbially active in Nimman.

I read a fascinating article about Nimman, and the evolution of digital nomadism. It romantically draws parallels between the digital nomad generation of the 2010s and the bohemians of the 1930s, the beats of the 50s, and the hippies of the 70s. It also parallels Nimman with artsy progressive hipster trendy hoods like London’s Soho, Saint-Germain in Paris and the Mission district in San Francisco.

I’m glad I read the article shortly after arriving, because it shed a more favourable light on the place than I was initially inclined to adopt; if I compare Nimman to the Chiang Mai I knew 10 years ago, all I could sense was the unpleasant air of gentrification. Although it appeared that Nimman was just as populated by Thai people as by foreigners, it felt a bit too much like a bubble.

Nimman, The (Unapologetic) Bubble

But who am I to judge the bubble. I (desperately) needed a bubble. After hitting critical mass in India, I needed some creature comforts, and given that my online business was still struggling, I didn’t have the means to enjoy them just anywhere.

I was also really curious to see what all the hubbub was about in Chiang Mai, and to tap into the community of digital nomads that has developed since I last visited. In my two months in Chiang Mai, I met more online colleagues and friends in person than I have collectively in my last 11 years on the road.

“Friends, food, and cheap cost of living. In that order.”

This is what a digital nomad friend of mine said she likes about Chiang Mai before I’d even finished asking the question. I couldn’t argue with her; that’s exactly what Chiang Mai (and Nimman in particular) offers digital nomads.

Lurk the thriving Chiang Mai Digital Nomads Facebook group and you’ll find a well-populated schedule of meetups, parties, games nights, mastermind workshops, courses, visa and accommodation advice, and more. Choose from the ever-increasing number of co-working spaces to get some concentrated work done, if the free (fast) wifi at any one of the dozens of upscale coffee shops and cafes doesn’t appeal.

Grab a cheap and ridiculously delicious Thai meal for $1.50; or a more expensive (like, $6-10) meal at the hundreds of trendy restaurants of almost every cuisine.

And then go home to your fully furnished and well-appointed condo (with a gym and pool and in walking distance of everything you could possibly need) that you’re paying $400/month or less for.

It’s very possible to live a ridiculously comfortable, healthy, and social life as a digital nomad in Chiang Mai (specifically in Nimman).

No wonder Chiang Mai is the Digital Nomad Centre of the Universe. Perhaps it is a bubble; but if it is, it is unapologetically so. Unlike other places, it doesn’t feel exploitative to me (neither exploitative of foreigners, nor of locals). I don’t sense the resentment towards foreigners that I’ve sensed by locals in so many developing countries where rising prices due to influxes of expats have actually forced locals to move away. Frankly, I’m not even sure it’s accurate to call Thailand a developing country any more.

Instead I’ve felt embraced by Thailand, and by the fiercely proud and independent Thai people.

Nimman appears to be a collective creation; one that suits digital nomads, university students, Thai entrepreneurs, an ever-increasing middle class, and Chinese tourists alike.

But….

Before we cue in the marching band and flag-waving parade, there is one wee little crack in this façade of bohemian joy. Perhaps it’s a fatal flaw that comes with all cities once they hit a certain size. Perhaps it’s the cultural and linguistic divide between Asia and the West. Or perhaps it’s a function of the very demographics and infrastructure of Chiang Mai, and more specifically, Nimman. I suspect it’s a bit of all three.

Much as I felt truly embraced by the Thai people and their never ending smiles at the primitive and basic Thai pleasantries I stuttered at them while ordering my food or browsing their stores, two months after arriving I didn’t feel any more connected with the Thai culture or people. I hadn’t made one single solitary Thai friend. Not only did I not find my friend TJ, but I didn’t meet any other TJs.

Chiang Mai has become a place where everybody is welcomed with open arms, to coexist in peace. But there is a big difference between coexisting and integrating.

The majority of the digital nomads I met who “live” in Chiang Mai (often returning for a few months every year) have made almost no attempt to learn to speak Thai. I’m equally as guilty; when I first visited Chiang Mai 10 years ago, I made a significantly more pronounced effort to learn and speak Thai. This time, I didn’t need to (and I had my own melodramatic story of exhaustion and personal health issues to deal with), so I got lazy. I wanted a place to just relax and enjoy some creature comforts and the company of some digital nomad (aka foreigner) friends.

I didn’t make any Thai friends because I made zero effort to. I may as well have been on the moon, and not in Thailand, save for the ridiculously delicious cuisine to remind me of where I was.

I have lived in international cities like Chiang Mai (and communities within like Nimman) before. I spent two years in Pisac Peru, where spiritual seekers the world round congregate to “be spiritual” and live inexpensively. I stayed in Cuenca and Vilcabamba, in Ecuador. I spent time in Ubud, Bali. In Peru especially, it used to ire me to no end how people couldn’t be bothered to learn Spanish, citing reasons like “I’m too old” or “it’s too hard” or “everybody speaks English anyway, there’s no chance to practice” – all of which are terrible excuses.

And yet, in Chiang Mai, I was “that foreigner”.

New World Culture?

Or perhaps I’m just a dinosaur. Perhaps our world culture is becoming increasingly global, along with economies and lifestyles. In just a few years it is projected that 40% of the workforce in America will have location independent careers. Thailand has recently followed Estonia in the development of “digital currencies”, and is among the ranks of an increasing number of countries developing special long-term/residency visas to welcome digital nomads.

In Chiang Mai, to accommodate visitors from around the world, English has become a centrally accessible language, and is visible (and audible) everywhere. It’s not like this makes it universally easy for foreigners; German and French and Italian and Chinese and Scandinavian (and many more) visitors still have to speak a foreign language (English) to get by.

When we were approaching Y2K (“year 2000” for young’uns who don’t remember that tenuous turn of the clock into the new century), China was big news, with its ridiculously high GDP and international/industrial/technological/economic progress. Word on the street was that we would all be speaking Chinese inside of 10 years.

I don’t doubt that China is still a contender for top dog, but 18 years later this blog is still in English, and in Thailand (where hoards of Chinese tourists flock every year), they have to speak English to get by.

With more and more people traveling (many with careers and lifestyles enabling them to do it for longer periods than ever before), perhaps we are entering a new age and time; one more globalized than I ever could have imagined. And language is just one barometer with which to understand what is happening.

If Nimman in Chiang Mai is any indication, the world is getting smaller by the second. My hope is that the convenience of globalization doesn’t whitewash individual cultures to the point where we all live in cultural obscurity and anonymity. Because then, what would be the point of traveling at all?

In Case You Missed It…

Chiang Mai, 10 Years Later – The Impossible Search

Where to Stay in Chiang Mai

If you want to rent an apartment (like) I did, then read this: How to Find an Apartment in Chiang Mai: A Step by Step Guide. 

If you’re looking for something a bit more short-term, then check out these awesome Chiang Mai accommodation deals. 

Things to do in Chiang Mai

Chiang Mai and the surrounding area is jam-packed with cool things to do. Click around here for some inspiration:

This post Chiang Mai’s Nimman: The Unapologetic Bubble appeared first on The Professional Hobo. Please click through to read it in full!

This, is the search for the old – and the new – in Chiang Mai, 10 years later.

This post was originally published in 2018. It has since been updated for accuracy of links and content.

Chiang Mai, Revisited

Visiting Chiang Mai Thailand was a full-circle experience for me. After visiting so many Asian countries new to my repertoire in 2017, I eagerly anticipated a poetic return to Chiang Mai, 10 years after my first visit. To my amazement, some things were exactly the same. Unsurprisingly, it had also changed drastically.

10 Years Ago

10 years ago, I stayed in the old city of Chiang Mai. Nimman (more on this neighbourhood in another post) probably didn’t even exist at the time. If it did, it wasn’t for visitors.

10 years ago, Thailand was my first Asian country in my full-time travel repertoire (I toured China with a ballet in 1993, but that’s another story).

10 years ago, I was traveling with my partner at the time; somebody who embarked on the full-time travel lifestyle with me, but with whom I broke up in Australia. (See also: My Sordid Attempts at Finding Love on the Road)

10 years ago, we accidentally started an international NGO to assist the survivors of Cyclone Nargis, which all but obliterated neighbouring Burma (Myanmar). What hatched as a modest plan to rent a truck, fill it with drinking water, and drive it to the border where an aid worker could pick it up, quickly exploded into the assistance of the Royal Thai Air Force and a C130 Hercules cargo aircraft that we couldn’t possibly fill on our own. (Hence, a three-week fundraising initiative that damn near killed us). Here’s the news story that was produced about us in the midst of our efforts to stay sane:

(Can’t see in your browser? Click here to watch on YouTube).

10 years ago, our fundraising efforts wouldn’t have been possible without the assistance (and later, friendship) of TJ: our Thai angel who ran the internet cafe around the corner from our guesthouse. He was so touched by what we were doing, that he gave us unmitigated access to his internet cafe, and he drove us around Chiang Mai to Rotary meetings (where we fostered awareness and made essential logistical connections), acted as our translator, cultural buffer, and most importantly, he was our friend. We came to know his wife, little daughter, and college friend very well, despite linguistic and cultural differences.

10 years ago, after wrapping up our fundraising efforts (at the expense of our ability to see the southern islands of Thailand as planned), my partner at the time got dengue fever, and we spent another week in Thailand in the hospital while he fought for his life and I fought the insurance company for assistance in paying the medical expenses, extending our expiring visas, and rescheduling our onward travel plans to Singapore.

A lot happened for me in Chiang Mai, 10 years ago.

10 Years Later

10 years later, I had about a dozen Asian countries notched into my travel bedpost. I was with a different partner (with whom I reunited in Chiang Mai after six months apart due to lifestyle/career differences). We stayed in a different neighbourhood, foreign in every sense to the Thailand I visited 10 years ago, yet steps away from the places I recognized as if time hadn’t passed.

Before arriving, I could barely remember the Chiang Mai of old. (10 years and a few dozen countries of travel memories will do that to you). I recalled an “old city” that was surrounded by a moat, which I easily identified on a map. I didn’t remember exactly where in the old city I stayed; my memories of Chiang Mai consisted mostly of short snippets of visual and visceral “recordings”, like well-worn clippings from home videos that lacked context.

I remembered a white hospital (where my partner battled dengue fever for a week), and 10 flights of stairs that I regularly descended while going out to get takeaway food for us at the brownstone mall around the corner. I had no idea where in the city this was.

But sure enough, in the taxi from the airport to the hotel 10 years later, I recognized it as we passed by, and then immediately doubted myself. That’s it….that’s the hospital! No it’s not, Nora. You’re creating memories that serve your current circumstances, in search of something familiar. I’m sure all hospitals look the same. But when we rounded the corner and I saw a multi-tiered brownstone shopping centre (called Central Mall), I knew I wasn’t fooling myself. I had been here before.

Still, I wasn’t in Chiang Mai to recapture old memories. I did, however, have a quiet mission to find TJ again. A mission I knew would be close to impossible – which made it all the more alluring. Stranger things have happened.

Searching for TJ

TJ (a nickname he conjured up because he figured his Thai name would be impossible for us to pronounce) ran an internet cafe, 10 years ago when I knew him. His wife had a small store selling kitschy keychains, pencil cases, and other random bits and bobs adorned with colourful Hello Kitty-like illustrations. I only visited her store once, buried somewhere in a mall I don’t recall, which would be impossible to re-locate. My only hope was to find the neighbourhood I stayed in 10 years ago, and wander the streets in hopes of finding TJ’s internet cafe.

Problem was, in 2017, internet cafes weren’t exactly on every street corner any more. And I had no information about TJ beyond his (fake) name and some video clips and pictures of his cafe, none of which were encompassing enough to help me (or anybody else) identify the place. But I remained cautiously optimistic that the Universe would sprinkle some fairy dust on my mission and somehow a magical reunion would be made possible.

My first wander of the old city was a dud. Thinking I had stayed somewhere in the southwest quadrant of the city, I weaved the streets methodically, stretching to recall something. Occasionally I had a sense of déjà vu, but nothing stuck.

Through the process of elimination, I determined that 10 years ago I stayed in the southeast quadrant. Finding myself in the neighbourhood one day, I suddenly recognized a temple. Memories came flooding back. I absolutely irrefutably knew where I was!

And also, kind of not.

Despite knowing the temple like I’d visited it just last week, I couldn’t exactly place it in my mental jigsaw puzzle of this former Chiang Mai neighbourhood. But my onward wanders were rewarded with more familiarity. Hard to believe the crappy corner restaurant could still be a crappy corner restaurant 10 years later, like it hadn’t aged a day. While many aspects of the old city of Chiang Mai had changed, just enough remained the same for me to get my bearings.

I found myself walking down a street I knew very well. I knew it was the street where TJ’s cafe was. I knew it would be on the right. I just didn’t know where.

Suddenly, I turned to look down a nondescript alley/narrow road. “That’s my guesthouse,” I said, matter of factly. I hadn’t remembered the name prior to seeing the sign, the very same sign 10 years later, that read “Julie Guesthouse”. Still not sure of myself, I walked down the alley to peek into the reception area, which had not changed one single bit. I wasn’t deluding myself; this was it.

But it also meant that I had walked by the place where TJ’s cafe should have been. It wasn’t there.

Funny. I’d even stopped outside a travel agency that had similar dimensions (and was that the same wallpaper, even?) to TJ’s cafe. My inner pragmatist knew his internet cafe had long since been repurposed, and yet I remained hopeful that he had evolved with it; turned it into a co-working space, perhaps, or a copy centre, or one of the few bastions of internet cafes that still remained.

He hadn’t.

Another sweep of the street confirmed this, replete with peeking into every shop on the off-chance that TJ was still in the area, just doing something different, and that I would recognize him.

No TJ.

My remaining romanticized hope was that perhaps TJ had become an Uber driver, and that we would serendipitously hop in his car one day. (Didn’t happen).

My apologies if you thought this would be one of those (fairy) tales where the heroine finds her knight in shining armour again against all odds. I really hoped I would find TJ again; stranger things have happened. We would have hugged, reminisced about old times, and caught up on new adventures.

But of course, TJ had moved on, as had Chiang Mai. It had gone from being a little city into a much bigger one; the second largest city in Thailand in fact. This is something that became abundantly clear to me over my two months in Nimman; a neighbourhood I’m not sure even existed when I last visited.

I’ve no doubt that TJ is doing well. Entrepreneurs through and through, I suspect that he and his wife have jumped on a new wave and are riding it into the sunset, while raising their daughter. Although she’s not yet of university age, perhaps I’ll return to Chiang Mai in another five years, and find her hanging out in Nimman, at her parents’ trendy coffee shop, where finally, I’ll get my fairy tale reunion with TJ.

Stranger things have happened.

This post Chiang Mai, 10 Years Later: The Impossible Search appeared first on The Professional Hobo. Please click through to read it in full!

With 10 countries and 29,254 miles traversed, 2017 was my most active year of travel since 2013, although interestingly my mileage count for the year seemed low given the number of flights I took (19 in total). At the end of this post you can see summaries of previous years’ adventures and how they measure up. But 29,000 or so miles is nothing to sneeze at; in some ways this last year feels like it was much longer than a year. Here’s why, and what I did in 2017:

This post was originally published in 2018. It has since been updated for accuracy of links and content. 

JANUARY: Florida, Ecuador

I started off 2017 in Florida at my (kind of) home base in Hollywood where I had spent a chunk of time in 2016. By mid-January, it was time to make a move, and that move was to the mountains outside of Cuenca Ecuador to live at Gaia Sagrada retreat centre; a place I discovered in late 2016 and to where I was returning.

FEB-MAY: Ecuador

The next four months were spent at Gaia Sagrada, where I assisted the manager in trade for a break on accommodation expenses, and informally continued my studies of ayahuasca and san pedro shamanism. It was an intense and all-encompassing position that required a lot of my energy through every two-week retreat.

So I didn’t spend much time “discovering” Ecuador, nor doing much work on my online business, which had been somewhat stagnant since I took to doing “shaman things” in Peru in late 2014.

But I did get around Ecuador a tiny bit during the five day breaks between retreats at the retreat centre. I visited Banos in the north, which is the adventure capital of Ecuador, and where I (sort of) bought a hotel for $29. I also visited Vilcabamba in the south; a popular “hippie town” with an interesting vibe that compares to my former home of Pisac Peru.

But the time soon came (inspired by an expiring Ecuadorian visa) for me to move on. By the end of May I was on a plane. Doors have been left open in Ecuador (and at Gaia Sagrada) for me to return, but to this day I’m not sure if it’s in the cards.

JUNE: Florida, (Toronto), Japan

The beauty of my (kind of) home base in Hollywood Florida at my friend’s house is that it’s a great jumping-off/landing point when traveling to/from South America. So after a couple of weeks of decompressing in Hollywood, I said sayonara to my boyfriend (with whom I’d been together since my arrival in Ecuador in 2016) who was jetting off to the west coast to earn some money while I jetted off to Tokyo (with a lightning fast layover in my hometown of Toronto ) for a house-sitting gig.

My arrival in Japan was an exercise in me proverbially coming up for air and taking stock of my online business, which had been relatively stagnant after three years of sitting on Andean mountaintops “doing shaman things”. What I saw wasn’t pretty.

JULY: Japan

Among other increased business activities such as redesigning my website and taking social media to a new level, I breathed new life into my dormant YouTube channel and started producing weekly travel vlogs. Tokyo was a perfect place to do it; it was eye candy for the camera and cocaine for the brain. Selected highlights included almost dying on Mount Takao, going to the Greatest Show in the History of Entertainment, and then having the wool pulled off my eyes in Akihabara.

I started to intellectually fall out of love with Japan after Akihabara, as I pontificated in my post Why I Could Never Life in Japan. But after almost two months in total in Japan, I managed to pull it all together with this (slightly more balanced) post.

AUGUST: Japan, Indonesia

I realized that in over 10 years of wandering the world, I almost never went somewhere without having my accommodation sorted out (and usually free accommodation at that). Bali was the first time I’d gone somewhere without having any innate connections, specific opportunities, or accommodation lined up.

But I went anyway, and it was fantastic. I hung with the monkeys, negotiated like a pro in the markets, hiked through rice terraces, and learned about the beautiful ceremonial practices of Balinese Hinduism. Oh yeah – and I visited Kuta to see a Balinese healer, which was a total comedy of errors (but the kind that made for a really funny post).

SEPTEMBER: Hong Kong, Macau, Indonesia

Coinciding with the expiration of my 30-day Indonesian visa was an opportunity to go to Macau to speak at a travel conference.

I stayed in Hong Kong for a week (and loved it – most of it), before taking a ferry over to Macau for the conference. The connections I made there paved the way for some opportunities for an upcoming trip to India that I’d booked after finding a mistake air fare.

After my quick sojourn in Hong Kong and Macau, I returned to Bali for what was supposed to be another month. Instead, the active volcano Mount Agung went into high alert, and although I was technically safe in Ubud, reports I’d heard from Ubud’s survivors of Mount Agung’s last eruption in 1963 didn’t make me want to stick around to find out, so I voluntarily evacuated. Turns out I evacuated a couple of months earlier than necessary, but the volcano did indeed start spewing ash which shut down the airport a few times.

I really enjoyed Bali on the whole, and am certainly curious to return….another time.

OCTOBER: Indonesia, Sri Lanka, India

Part of the reason evacuating from Bali was easy for me was because I had friends of friends (of friends) in Jakarta who were kind enough to open up their homes to me. I had no intention of writing about my three weeks in Jakarta which were pretty sedentary, but a few things happened that I found so amusing I simply had to share.

Then it was off to India (via a night in Sri Lanka). India was another destination that I chose without having much of anything organized save for a cheap flight. But after sending off a few emails and making some connections in Macau, my trip started to take shape. It began in Jaipur where I reunited with an old friend and landed in the lap of luxury, which continued on the Deccan Odyssey: the most luxurious train in the world.

NOVEMBER: India, Thailand

Even in the lap of luxury, everything started to go wrong for me, and my month in India (much of which was spent in Rishikesh) became a critical and pinnacle experience for what I suspect is going to be a big transition/transformation (still in progress). I’ll be pontificating more on this idea in 2018, as this is something that is unfurling by the day.

So it was with no small degree of enthusiasm that I left India in mid-late November on a plane bound for Chiang Mai Thailand, where I reunited with my boyfriend after six months apart. We found a sweet little condo to nest in for a wee while.

DECEMBER: Thailand

I’ll be writing a bit more about Chiang Mai in the coming weeks; but I also don’t have very much to write about Chiang Mai on the whole, since I did almost nothing noteworthy (from a travel blogger’s perspective). Instead I enjoyed all the creature comforts of this surprisingly bohemian city, ate amazing food, went to the gym, spent time with my boyfriend, and tended to some increasingly consuming issues of health and wellness (both physical and emotional).

It was an agonizing kind of bliss that capped off 2017 in the strangest of ways.

Summary Notes

For a year that started off in South America with a focus on plant medicine work, I didn’t expect to visit 10 countries; including seven Asian countries – all of which were new to me except for Thailand. Then again, it was a year full of unexpected surprises and new experiences. The easiest way to explain my current state of being is to say that it’s like every single aspect of my life has been thrown up in the air (lifestyle, location, health, relationships, career, etc), and I’m watching all the pieces float around and am waiting to see where they land. It’s simultaneously exciting and agonizing. 2018 is going to be a very interesting year. Stick around….I’m pretty sure it won’t be boring.

10 countries and 29,254 miles…..2017 is another one to go down in my own little history book.

Previous Annual Summaries

My First Four Years of Full-Time Travel (2007-2010, including Canada, Hawaii, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Australia, USA, Mexico, New Zealand, Spain, Germany, France, England, Scotland, Ireland, Nepal)

What I did in 2011 (13 countries, 73,000 kms, including New Zealand, Canada, USA, Sweden, Portugal, Spain, Switzerland, Czech Republic, Ukraine, Russia, China, Vietnam, Grenada)

What I did in 2012 (8 countries and 20,000 miles, including Grenada, St. Martin, BVIs, USA, Switzerland, France, England, Canada)

What I did in 2013 (12 countries and 29,000 miles, including Grenada, USA, Canada, England, Scotland, Holland, Norway, Denmark, Germany, Ukraine, France, Panama)

What I did in 2014 (7 countries and 34,000 miles, including Panama, USA, Canada, Peru, Spain, Gibraltar, Italy)

What I did in 2015 (6 countries and 35,000 miles, including Peru, Colombia, USA, Costa Rica, Canada, Bolivia)

What I did in 2016 (5 countries and 30,000 miles, including Peru, USA, Canada, Ireland, and Ecuador)

This post 10 Countries and 29,254 Miles: This was 2017! appeared first on The Professional Hobo. Please click through to read it in full!

Satisfied it, and then some. Here are some highlights (and otherwise) of our culinary adventures:

This post was originally published in 2008. It has since been updated for accuracy of links and content.

Street Food in Asia: Are You Brave?

For those with an iron constitution and a little courage, the street food in Asia is not only cheap and cheerful, but also a staple for many residents. Usually for under a dollar, you can help yourself to a serving of your favourite meal, cooked right in front of you. Pad Thai, curries, sweet roti, fried rice, green papaya salad, fried meats and fish, and yes – even insects, are available for sampling.

Some of the best places to enjoy a street-food-meal are at the local markets, where in between shopping for local crafts and souvenirs, you can stop off for a meal or drink.

We enjoyed the street food of Asia, and had no incidents of digestive distress to speak of (as many people worry about). I will say though, that after many weeks of this type of eating (ie: eating while standing or walking through thick crowds, and typically shoveling the food down whilst in search of our next street-food course), we found that our ability to sit down and enjoy a meal is now hindered. But at restaurants they tend to look at us funny if we say we want to eat standing up, so we sit down, try to slow down, and not rush off to another restaurant as soon as we’re finished.

“To Go, Please”

Asian people also don’t like to eat while standing and walking, so when they choose to eat street food, they often get it to go. And when you order this way, you can expect your meal to be served up…in a plastic bag.

Order curry, and you’ll get a small bag of rice, another with curry in it, and maybe a third with various condiments. They have a great way of tying the bags with an elastic so they are full of air and securely fastened, and yet easy to open. I tried and tried to emulate their bag-tying prowess, but to no avail.

It was when I saw people getting drinks to go – also in plastic bags – that I realized fast food is an art form in Asia.

I guess it is a good thing – plastic in general isn’t good, but a few plastic bags is less wasteful and harmful for the environment than hard plastic cups, or Styrofoam.
See also: My Zero Waste Kit for Travel

Food Court?

While in Chiang Mai, we had one of the best food court experiences of all time. In a temple courtyard on the night of a weekly local market, dozens of street food stalls set up along the perimeter of the square. In the middle were some beautiful thick rich-coloured wood picnic tables and benches. And typical of so many public eating establishments in Thailand, we found it to be impeccably clean.

What capped off the experience and made it memorable for us was the accompaniment: monks chanting. The hum and low lull of their voices in unison provided all the ambience we needed for an incredible experience.

Mongolian Grill?

One night in search of a new set of street food stalls, we passed by what appeared to be a Mongolian Grill. We had dined at such establishments many times back home in Toronto; a large round grill occupies the middle of your table, and you are brought trays of various meats, fish, and vegetables to cook up and dip in a variety of delicious sauces.

“Sweet”! We said, as we excitedly took our places at a table. What fun this will be.

When we looked around at the other customers, we were pleased to discover that the place was not only packed (a good sign), but we were the only white people there (also a good sign).

The server spoke absolutely no English (this evening was full of good signs), so she basically brought us the standard fare for this restaurant. We immediately recognized the little plastic trays as they were brought to our table. Via sign language the server asked if we knew what we were doing, to which we casually indicated that we were old pros at this form of dining. She filled the perimeter of the grill with water (our first sign that maybe we were in over our heads), and walked away with what in retrospect I can only imagine was a slight smirk.

Still sure we knew what we were doing, but wanting to confirm our knowledge, we stole glances at the couples and families enjoying their meals near to us. Lettuce and fish went into the water (which was now boiling), and the meat went on the grill.

“Okay, this is no problem. It’s a little different, but still a Mongolian Grill, just as we thought,” we said with a sigh of relief.

Then, we took a look at the meat in front of us. Something fatty – bacon? Something pink. Something resembling ribs. Something else shiny, something that looks like liver, and two more trays of bacon-looking meat. It appeared that instead of getting a selection of different meats, we got a selection of different parts of a pig.

It was the intestine/colon that got to me. I won’t go into specifics, but suffice it to say that from the overly chewy consistency to whatever it was that squirted out when I bit down on it, I had discovered a culinary limit. The entire time, I couldn’t get out of my head an episode of Anthony Bourdain’s No Reservations, where he was relegated to eating wild boar colon over a fire in the African bush. What was in my mouth could well have been something relatively innocuous; but there was no convincing me that it wasn’t pig ass.

We muscled our way through the rest of the meal, noticing that we weren’t as smoothly getting through the dinner as our neighbouring tables were. We had huge amounts of meat charred and stuck to the grill, and we certainly did not ask for seconds, like most of the other diners were so eagerly doing. They seemed to be having a gay old time of it – we seemed to want to puke.

And sadly, I don’t think I will ever look at a Mongolian grill the same way again.

Although we don’t expect as many culinary adventures, anomalies, and street food stalls in Australia, we look forward to trying new foods, and even grilling up a thing or two…on the “Barbie” kind of grill, not Mongolian kind!

This post Eating in Asia appeared first on The Professional Hobo. Please click through to read it in full!

This post was originally published in 2008. It has since been updated for accuracy of links and content.

This post would not have been possible without TRAVEL INSURANCE. I might have had some difficultly along the way with the insurance company, but better to have difficulties than to be on the hook for everything yourself. On the whole, the insurance company was very helpful.

DAY 7 In The Hospital:

The only time I’ve had to reflect in the last few days has been spent in uncontrollable tears. Here are some snipits of the fun we’ve had:

– A new team of nurses joins us on Day 5. They speak no English, and seem to lack many basic nursing skills. They leave arm bands on Kelly after drawing blood, they bring Kelly paracetamol hours after detecting that he has a high fever, and they never change the sheets despite numerous requests (one of Kelly’s symptoms is profuse sweating). Once we manage to get them to do so, they don’t bring a blanket. When the chills arise, asking for a blanket with all the charades you can imagine is almost impossible.

– Kelly’s nausea erupts into a vomiting fit – the first time he has vomited in 10 years, he says. The nurse injects an anti-nauseant into Kelly’s iv, which sends him into fits of hallucination (not the good kind), pain, sweats, chills, and dizziness. He thinks he is going to die. An hour later, it subsides.

– I’ve been communicating with the insurance company almost daily. One particularly kind gentleman on the phone proves to be completely incompetent once he sets to the task he promises to do. Instead he sends me an email indicating I have to call Australia’s enrollment department myself to figure out the matter in question (who also proves to be completely the wrong department, but at least they are helpful), and to make matters worse he sends the email to the wrong address. Who spells “skies” as “skyes”??? Come on, people…

– Thursday (the day our visas expired for Thailand) comes. After being assured that we could wait until the last minute on Thursday to apply and that this is routine stuff (“no problem,” they say), I find myself at the Immigration office with the application being refused because the doctor didn’t write my name and passport number on the medical report as well. Back to the hospital I go, and am taken straight to the director, who I have to fight with to write a new report so I can get back to the Immigration office with literally 10 minutes to spare. Nice.

– We are bored with the nurses. Initially, we engaged them in all the conversation we could, learned their names, and were courteous and attentive. Now, we are just bored. So many nurses come in and out of the room, that we have started to react to them the way you react to the bus boy or server in a restaurant who has just filled your water glass for the tenth time. It’s uncomfortable and insincere to gush and express huge gratitude every time, but it doesn’t feel right to ignore the gesture either. So you politely cease conversation while they’re doing the task at hand (ie filling the water glass/administering medication/taking temperature and blood pressure/checking the iv, etc), and then thank them as they’re leaving. We don’t know anybody’s name any longer, and have lost interest in learning.

– There’s no getting around the fact that I’m absolutely exhausted. I was exhausted with the Burma project. Dengue Fever is just the icing on the cake.

And so it happens that I find myself on my way downstairs for yet another round of insurance phone calls, sitting in the stairwell in uncontrollable tears. My computer just had a mini-meltdown after three hours of effort was put into an internet posting, and it was the final straw. Kelly knew I was upset, but I wasn’t about to let loose in front of him; this was the sort of upset where things get broken. And with Kelly at severe risk for internal bleeding, I didn’t want him to be the broken one.

So I leave, go to the stairwell to go downstairs, but find myself unable to make my legs move. There I sit, on the 10^th floor landing, sobbing as quietly as I can so the echo through the stairwell is inaudible. Every once in a while somebody comes through, so I stand up and go down a flight or two like nothing is wrong and resume my sobbing position.

I pray. I really pray. I pray for Kelly. I pray for myself. I pray for peace. For wellness. For happiness. For something to go right in Asia. But most of all, I pray for the strength to get through this.

The tears eventually end, and I resume my mission to make my phone calls, tear-stained face and all.

– That isn’t my only fit. Yesterday (Day 6), once again exhausted but not understanding just how exhausted I am (it’s tough to get a good night of sleep on a couch with nurses coming in every two hours), I find myself walking through the mall after a few hours of errands. Errands which include finding out where I can get some documents translated for insurance purposes, running there before they close, begging them not to charge me exorbitantly for what is basically the translation of two small receipts, and trying to impart a sense of urgency against their three-day turnaround policy. Not to mention a few other such errands, all after the big fight to extend our visas and other minor catastrophes averted.

So here I am, walking through the mall. All of a sudden, my lips go numb. My knees buckle, I am fighting tears, and I start to pass out. I had been lightheaded through much of the day, but this is profound. Maybe my blood-sugar is low, I think. Often a quick snack can solve many problems I have, including over-emotional behavior, stomach cramps, light-headedness, etc.

A small Dairy Queen (yes, Dairy Queen in Chiang Mai) dipped cone later (something that normally would be a treat, but this time is more like taking medicine than enjoyable), I find myself sitting on a bench next to an escalator waiting to recover. I am across from a home show display. Mattresses, fridges, and exercise equipment are on exhibit under way too much fluorescent lighting. A small army of extremely bored salespeople are scattered throughout the large display, many of them talking on cell phones or text messaging their friends.

Right in front of me is a set of machines that I expect are meant to help reduce cellulite or lose weight. You stand on a platform that jiggles and bounces. That’s it. You hang on to the bar at waist level, and jiggle. I watch the machines, idly bouncing on their own, wondering why anybody would own one. It reminds me of the cellulite machines that were popular in the 50’s where you are strapped in with a large band around your hips and the band agitates, sending your entire body (but mostly your posterior) into fits of motion. This is intended to loosen up the fat I guess.

Music that was popular in Canada about five years ago is blasting from a nearby speaker. I actually enjoy listening to the tunes and I allow them to take me back to the happy moments when I used to hear them back home. Music has a wonderful way of bringing back vivid memories. I am at Bill’s place watching a funny Eminem music video when Eminem was just becoming popular, I am with my buddy Ermos from Investors Group on our way to a seminar, and I am driving to Ottawa in my fancy car to visit Kelly. All happy memories. I even find myself quietly singing along with a few of the tunes.

I snap back to reality when I realize that instead of personal cell phones being the main attraction of the bored salespeople, I now am. They are trying hard not to point and whisper, but they’re pointing and whispering.

This is my cue. I do an internal scan. Has the ice cream cone kicked in yet? Well, I feel a little better. Tears are not as imminent as they once were. My lips are still numb, but I hope it’s from the cold ice cream now. And the final litmus test: I try to stand up. Knees are working okay. I’m lightheaded, but that’s common for me when standing up. Sick or well, I’ve just whittled away the last half hour and I must get some dinner for us and get back to the hospital.

I resume my search for “something American, maybe a cheeseburger,” which is Kelly’s dinner request. I am embarrassed to be ordering American food in Thailand. I worry that people think I’m “that person” – the North American who comes to Asia but doesn’t want to eat the food because I’m afraid of being tricked into eating fish eyes or cat testicles or something. Which is quite the contrary; bring on the fish eyes if it’s an experience in cultural immersion. And Thai food is still among my all-time favourite cuisines.

But I’m here to quench Kelly’s scarce appetite, which today is for American food. As I wander the extensive food courts, riddled with indecision, another wave of lip numbing, knee buckling, light-headed nausea washes over me. Oops – I’d better get something quickly. Anything. Korean food it is. As long as it doesn’t look like green curry, it should be fine for Kelly. Half the time he barely eats what I bring him anyway.

I order and lean against a wall as they prepare the food. My stomach is churning, but not in a hunger-induced way. I want to close my eyes, and believe I could fall asleep standing up, even though I’m not feeling conventionally tired. I force myself to keep my eyes open and remain upright, grab the food, and make a final dash towards the finish line – a 10 minute walk away.

I walk intently, focused on the ground in front of me. My peripheral vision is dampening, and I coach myself out loud. “Keep going, Nora. It’s just around the corner. You can’t stop now,” I say. I feel my forehead – sweaty, but not hot. Good. No Dengue for me.

A dog barks from behind a gated property. It startles me so much I scream in a way I don’t believe I’ve ever screamed before. It doesn’t even sound like my voice. It wakes up the gate attendant who looks quizzically at me, like “dogs bark all the time here, lady. What’s your deal?” I resume my gaze on the ground in front of me and quicken my pace, embarrassed.

The elevator ride to the 10^th floor takes eons. I lean against the side, staring at the blank space about two feet in front of me. I don’t even have the energy to smile at the people getting on and off, on and off, as I usually do. I just stare.

Getting back to the room, I let it all go. Bags drop to the floor, and I collapse on the couch. I can’t speak in full sentences. Tears stream down my face. I moan quietly. I can’t even qualify how I’m feeling to Kelly, who is obviously concerned. The man in hospital pajamas with an iv in his wrist is rubbing MY back and taking MY temperature. There’s something wrong with this picture.

But I don’t fight it. I can’t. The ball has dropped, and I’m officially clinically exhausted. I can’t control the tears. I’ve cried in front of Kelly before throughout this episode/adventure/disaster (whatever you want to call the last month), but not like this. I didn’t want him to see me like this. I wanted to be strong for him. But now Kelly is strong for me. All I can do is lean on his shoulder and cry.

Eventually I run out of tears. There’s nothing left to cry about. I’m tired, but I’ll be damned if I go to bed now without eating the dinner I just searched all over for. And so we turn on the tv, watch a movie, and eat dinner, side by side in the hospital bed with the bed table in front of us.

The episode has subsided, nothing left to discuss. We do our best to pretend we are sitting on a couch at home (wherever that may be). There is no iv beeping, no nurse call button, no fluorescent lights, and no gurney bed. Just us, a nice dinner, and a movie. All that’s missing is a nice glass of red wine. But alas, I said I won’t drink any more, and so we make do with what we have; a very necessary skill that we have learned on the road.

“Cheers,” we say as we clink water glasses and move on.

See also: How to Stay Healthy While Traveling; Natural Preventions and Cures

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This story has a happy ending because (Kelly survives, and) all medical expenses and cancelled travel plans are covered by our insurance company, which is World Nomads. They’re the most flexible for travel insurance, allowing you to apply for and renew it from abroad. Get a free quote here.

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This post Hospital Life with Dengue Fever appeared first on The Professional Hobo. Please click through to read it in full!

We sit in the stifling heat, beating off the flies and bees. Cicadas and crickets chirp in the hills all around, and a chorus of laughing children drifts up to us from the valley below. Fields of rice and citrus form the vast expanse in front of us, and the occasional Thai farmer in broad straw hat moving about his fields breaks up the monotony.

A giant spider tenderly creeps by behind us, aiming not to be seen. A welcome breeze wisps by, rustling the banana tree leaves to sound like the light patter of rain.

I take a sip from my mango-smoothie-like-no-other.

This is what break-time looks like at our cooking course in paradise.

This post was originally published in 2008. It has since been updated for accuracy of links and content.

On Monday afternoon, we are whisked away from Chiang Mai and taken to a small organic farm and permaculture property about 50 kms outside of the city, in the beautiful country side. A quick stop at the market floods all our senses: sounds of shopkeepers calling to one another and chatting with customers, smells of everything from fresh fruit to rotting fish, colourful sights of tray after tray of produce, fingers running over everything from silk to cacti, and the taste of just about anything you dare to try.

Another short ride and the truck pulls off the main road and onto an uneven driveway meant for a four-wheeler. But here, cars, trucks, and (more commonly) motorbikes navigate conditions many drivers back home in Canada might think twice about.

We have just pulled into You Sabai; a little piece of paradise run by Krit and Yao, a beautiful and kind Thai couple.

“Relax, take a walk around the property, have a nap, come by the coffee shop, whatever you like. We’ll have dinner at 7:30,” Yao says, after she shows us to our adobe hut which is to be our little home for the next three nights.

The hut reminds us of the ferro cement yurt we lived in for almost three months in Hawaii. Only it is smaller, the windows are covered with mosquito netting, and the bed is on the floor (a romantic style I absolutely adore and plan to replicate when we set up shop again in Canada). A large white mosquito net hangs above the bed loosely tied up. A peek out the window reveals miles and miles of relatively untouched greenery, gradually climbing up a small mountain in the distance. This is the stuff of dreams; I’m sure if I read romance novels that this place would be front and center in one.

There is no electricity (candles and headlamps illuminate the way at night), and the washroom is another adobe hut just up the path. The shower is as traditional as it gets in this part of the world: a large bucket filled with water (all the water here is from a rain catchement or nearby reservoir), with a smaller scoop or bowl to ladle the water all over yourself. And the water is always colder than you expect it to be.

We haven’t even started cooking yet and my senses are being overloaded!

After a fabulous dinner that gives us a small preview of what we are to expect in the next three days, we retire to our hut for the night.

Ah yes. We remember this from Hawaii: the rounds. We inspect every inch of the bed, the walls, our clothes, and the blankets for critters we would rather not share the night with. Although we are reassured that there’s nothing “very” poisonous here, we are a long way from anywhere we could get first aid, and a long way from anything familiar.

The spiders are easily 5cms wide (and those are the small ones), and we immediately spot two different (and alarmingly large) types of scorpions.

Needless to say, with all our night companions, sleep does not come easily, even with the mosquito net creating a protective bubble around us.

At least the sounds of nature and not urban sprawl keep us company, and eventually we drift off into la-la land with a chorus of strange and foreign animals singing to us.

Bright and early the next morning, we gather for Yoga in what has to be the most inspirational setting ever. The sun is rising over the rolling mountain beyond, and we lay our yoga mats out on a small patch of dirt with the valley in front of us. We are a small group that has risen (literally) to the occasion: there are just six of us.

And it just so happens that one of the course attendees just took a yoga-teacher workshop, and she leads us through a one-hour Ashtanga session that loosens us up and stretches us out.

After a quick break and breakfast of fresh fruits, it’s down to business.

As a group (we are seven in total), we must decide on 12 of the 20 delightful vegetarian Thai dishes to prepare. It isn’t too difficult, and it quickly becomes apparent that we as a group will have fun cooking together.

But before we head for the kitchen and headlong into our lunch preparation, we learn how to make tofu…from scratch. Tofu has always been something of a mystery to me, and often not the protein of choice. Although I don’t mind it, I’ve never found an easy way to cook with it without turning it into an unidentifiable mush.

But the tofu we made was firm, delicious, and relatively easy to make! Although we are not devout vegetarians (we prefer to call ourselves “omnivores”), we fully expect to make our own tofu in the not too distant future.

The kitchen is not what we are prepared for; an open-air paradise, overlooking the open valley and distant foothills. There are four wooden stands with propane burners, and a long cement table where we eager students take seats in front of the ingredients we will shortly be preparing. With seven sets of hands to chop, dice, and mince (plus the very capable hands of Krit, our instructor), easy work is made of the initial preparations.

Shortly thereafter, we start cooking; Krit would prepare a dish, we would all taste it (no cooties here – everybody dips their spoon in and shares communally), then in two shifts, would try our own hands at replicating Krit’s masterpieces.

Fresh spring rolls, pad thai, panang curry, sweet and sour pineapple, green curry, sweet mango sticky rice….the list goes on. Everything is made from scratch, and with nothing but organic and fresh ingredients, grown onsite or purchased locally. What a treat!

And so it went, Tuesday and Wednesday – yoga in the morning (until the bees came out at which point I would run away, flailing my arms all along the way), a small breakfast (thankfully), then three dishes for lunch, and three dishes for dinner. Inevitably by the time dinner rolled around, we would insist that we were much too full to keep cooking and eating, but somehow we would manage to keep cooking and eating.

After dinner by headlamp and a sole light bulb in the area, we would chat, play cards, and get to know each other better, all the while batting away a whole new conglomerate of insects that came out at night. Once the insects got to be too much, we would retire one by one, and proceed to inspect our respective huts for unwanted creepy crawlies.

Some of the students were up for the bugs more than others. None of us were all too pleased to be sharing our dwellings with the likes of a scorpion, but some were able to take it in stride a little better. I would like to think that with our Hawaii experiences, we fell into the latter category, but you never know. I think I lost ground every time I ran from a meditative yoga session for all the bees around me.

Thursday morning, we decide to skip yoga, and find ourselves being woken up by the mystical sound of music, drifting up from the valley. A truck with a loudspeaker is driving by the temple way below us, and singing to the hills. The ominous music lingers and creates a slight echo, both throughout the valley and in our own minds. This is one of the best alarm clocks we have ever had, and we try to capture this moment forever as we lay in bed listening to the bells and chimes. What a way to wake up before we head back to Chiang Mai.

We reflect on the three days we spent creating wonderful meals, memories, and friendships. You Sabai continues to be an experience we rave about to anybody who will listen. If we could do it again, we would, bug spray and all.

This post Cooking In Thailand Paradise appeared first on The Professional Hobo. Please click through to read it in full!

Once in Chiang Mai, though, we saw another side to the story.

And now – I get it.

This post was originally published in 2008. It has since been updated for accuracy of links and content.

When we decided to do whatever we could to help the victims in Burma, we approached the owner of the internet café we had already spent some time at. We asked him if he knew where we could rent a truck. Immediately, we were introduced to a friend who has a truck, and would be willing to drive with us to the Thai/Burma border to drop off the supplies. He would not charge us for gas or usage…instead his biggest expense is time. So we would pay him by the day, which was sure to be a fraction of the cost to rent.

But the café owner (who told us to call him TJ, but whose Thai nickname is actually Taey – pronounced something like “doy”) didn’t stop there. When he discovered we are Rotarians, he exclaimed “My father used to be a Rotarian! I can call the president of the Chiang Mai Rotary club. He is a very powerful man, and he can help you,” and off to the races we went.

Again, the generosity didn’t stop even there. TJ granted us unmitigated access to his café to use his computers and the internet whenever we wished. He apologized for having to charge us for phone calls though – it is a direct expense he cannot bear. (The fact he felt he had to apologize for this was unbelievable; his generosity was already reaching unprecedented levels in our books).

But hold your applause – there’s more. He then proceeded to chauffer us all over the city of Chiang Mai; to Rotary meetings, to the mall for supplies, and on various errands. If we ever suggested that we would take a taxi and spare him (or god forbid actually take the taxi in question), he became angry with us. And on the few occasions when he couldn’t drop everything to drive us somewhere, he got one of his employees (and good friends from college, whose name is “Ou” – don’t even try to pronounce it because this seemingly simple name will somehow end up coming out all wrong) to take on the task.

And so a relationship developed over the following two weeks of our fundraising and aid relief efforts for the victims of Cyclone Nargis in Burma. TJ spoke very good English and served as a translator for us more than once. We met his beautiful wife and daughter, and visited the gift shop that his wife owns and operates. We cracked jokes with Ou, who is a self-proclaimed expert on Chiang Mai cuisine, “with a belly to prove it,” he would say proudly, rubbing his tummy. Ou even makes a cameo appearance in the CBC National news story on our efforts – right at the end he is the one to walk into the café.

Now, both TJ and Ou visit Kelly & I daily at the hospital. They bring us fruit, good company, and just today they gave us a bag full of gifts that they were going to give us when we left (which was supposed to be last week). TJ continues to drive me anywhere I need to go, and scolded Kelly yesterday for letting me go to the train station by myself to cancel our tickets instead of calling him to pick me up and take me.

TJ (like many Thai people we met) is a very modest and humble person. Before taking us to some of the Rotary meetings knowing he would be in the company of big business owners, he told us that he doesn’t belong. “I’ll just wait in the car,” he said.

“No you absolutely won’t!” we said. “We need you in there to help us communicate, and besides – you are embracing the meaning of Rotary with your generosity and dedication to a good cause! You do belong.”

Once in the meetings, he was astonished to discover that these people enjoyed talking to him, gave him their business cards, and even asked him to join the Rotary club.

“That man,” he said one day, pointing with a shaking finger to a fellow who had made efforts to chat with TJ, “is the CEO for one of the biggest computer companies in the city. He is a famous man. A powerful man. And he wanted to speak to me! And he is so nice! Look – the hairs are standing up on my arm from being in his presence!” he exclaimed, flush in the face and clutching the man’s business card.

Is it this unassuming and modest nature (even in the big business people) that gives the Thai people such charm. There is true respect in their greetings (prayer hands, held under the chin accompanying a slight bow). Never a desire to step on anybody’s toes. Generosity extended in whatever way possible. And always, even if a stranger passing on the street – a big smile in return if you have one on your own face.

Quite frankly, the expats we have met stand out garishly in comparison, despite how nice or genuine they try to be. Try as these expats may, the gentle nature of the Thai people we have met is as yet unmatched.

We believe that had we not embraced the Burma relief efforts in the way we did, we would not have experienced this level of Thai hospitality – the kind that people say is dead.

And the Thai friendliness we saw extends way beyond the efforts of TJ and Ou. Members of the various Chiang Mai rotary clubs offered their individual help to us in a variety of ways, from establishing contacts, to donating money, to the efforts of Thitiphan – the Rotary president TJ spoke of, who was a real leader for us in helping broadcast our call for help throughout the Chiang Mai business community.

The woman who has washed our laundry a few times gives me a big hug whenever I come by. For no reason at all, she hugs me and giggles. She is hands down one of the sweetest people I have ever met, and we can hardly even have a conversation with the language barriers.

Here in Chiang Mai, if somebody stops you on the street and asks you where you are going, they aren’t always trying to get you into their taxi. Sometimes, they are simply interested in what you are doing, and they enjoy giving you advice on good places to see in their beautiful city. How refreshing.

TJ & Ou have been our Thai family, supporting us through some very tough times in every way possible, in the absence of our own families who are so far away. And of course when we told them this, they simply blushed, laughed, looked away coyly, and tried to find yet another way to help us. As only a modest and generous Thai person would do.

Who says Thai hospitality is dead? Somebody who either never left Bangkok, or who didn’t stop long enough to see what the place is all about, I think. Take a side step off the tourist bandwagon in Thailand, and you may find something you never anticipated. True friendships and genuine hospitality.

This post Thai Hospitality: A Fine Specimen appeared first on The Professional Hobo. Please click through to read it in full!