Good Morning America

Bangkok, Thailand

You know that you’re back on Khaosan Road when you are walking down the street at 1am and you see a mom with her little kid in a stroller, standing amongst the prostitutes and drunken teenagers.

Working on a Night Train

Bangkok, Thailand

It didn’t really feel like we had been in Chiang Mai for forty days until we actually had to leave. Just like in Torun, we realized that staying in one place for a long time and then leaving can bring all of the original travel nerves back. It’s so easy to get comfortable. To enjoy the routine of waking early, meditating in my room, then walking into the cool morning air, through the bustling market street, and saying good morning to my favorite vendor as she packed my breakfast of mangoes, sticky rice, and treats wrapped in banana leaves. I miss the smile of my banana pancake chef and afternoons spent wandering among the shelves of endless used book stores. I understand why Chiang Mai is the Thai capital of expats. You get the city conveniences, but the small town feel. But as our meditation bootcamp made indisputably clear, all things in life are impermanent, or as we say in the west, all good things must come to an end.

Yeah, I Said Bangkok

Bangkok, Thailand

I apologize in advance for letting everyone down. You may have looked at the slide show in advance and noticed that we didn’t take many pictures of Bangkok. It’s not that we were lazy. In fact we would have loved to have captured many images. We didn’t take many pictures because, well, we were pretty much stunned. You see, many moons ago Gage and I hatched this crazy plan to quit our jobs, sell all we own, and troop off to Thailand. Well a few natural catastrophes derailed our plans and we found ourselves in Europe for several months. While running around Europe was fun, arriving in Thailand was absolutely surreal. For more than a year we have been dreaming of this country. That dream was realized the moment we touched down in Bangkok. It didn’t matter to us that we didn’t have reservations at a hotel, a guide book, or even a map of the city. No, all that mattered was that we had arrived.

Non-stop grins in the BKK Airport