Bye Bye Pai

Enjoying a night out at a local art and music show in Pai

I am quite sure that like the great Frosty the Snowman, my future holds nothing for me but a sad pathetic puddle. I am positively melting right now. It has been painfully hot the last couple of days, and it's taking all I have not to insert some profane curse words in this sentence to really get the point across. Actually it's taken some strength not so just shout profanity publicly all day today.

Julie and I said goodbye to Pai today, although we will both be returning. She will be going back Monday to look into some volunteering and teaching opportunities, and I will be taking Dave up there at the end of our trip to show him the black hole oasis that has held me in it's beautiful clutches for the last three weeks. I returned my scooter last week so Julie and I have been walking the two miles in and out of town, usually twice a day. It's a fine walk in the evening, but midday has just really been a bitc- i mean it's been hard. Today was one of the hottest, but I knew we had our minivan ride at two thirty and I was looking forward to a little air conditioned relieve on the three hour drive.

I got a little cocky with my anti-nausea pill in hand and went ahead and stuffed a yogurt and oatmeal cookie into my face once we got into our seats. The drive up to Pai last month had been so nice with that little pill, I expected the same on the return trip.

One hour later, I was being told to please throw my bag of puke out the door and leave it on the side of the road. OK FINE.

After three hours of both of us in a cold yet boiling sweat, gagging and falling in and out of conciousness (the anti-nausea pills make you very drowsy), we finally made it Chiang Mai. "I think I literally feel Hell licking at my heels" was just one of my many cursed thoughts as the van careened around an 180 degree turn. Julie didn't quite make it to puking, I got to be the star of that show. As we stumbled out of the van, she had to laugh about how she always saw people getting off the bus in Chiang Mai from Pai with a look of death on their faces. She understood now.

We were both excited for a weekend in the city after loafing around Pai for so long. Although at this moment I am pretty sure we are both longing for the cool mountain nights again. Tomorrow is Easter and we decided to try and find a little way to celebrate it. Not sure if we will be successful in finding chocolate bunnies in 100 degree heat, but if need be we will get chocolate pancakes and cut out bunnies ourselves.

The day before we left Pai, Julie and I were finding refuge from the heat (although it's not really refuge if you're still sweating to the point of almost sliding off your chair...) and met Sloan from Oregon! She is from Ashland and has been teaching in Thailand for 6 months. She will be heading back to the states in May after doing some traveling around SE Asia for a bit. Sloan had just made a friend from Belgium (which is rare, Belgium is tiny I've learned!), so it only made sense that the Oregon girl with a friend from Belgium should go out for a dinner and beers with the Oregon girl with a friend from Belgium! The girls spoke Flemish together, and Sloan and I stuck to our very non-exotic language of English. We had so much fun, which was great timing because it was Sloan's last night in Pai as well.

Thank you Pai for giving me a wonderful stay with you- I met so many wonderful people and had so many beautiful conversations while visiting you. Same time, same place, two weeks? <3

Ps. I made it easier for you guys to leave comments on my blog (at least I think so). So feel free to leave me some love if you feel so inclined... ;)

According to the Calender...

Dave will be here in less than a week. Can I just type that again? Dave will be here in less than one week. I am a little bit in awe of how fast time has gone. But on the other hand, I feel like I have been traveling for 6 months already. Looking back at the first half of my pictures on the trip and it feels like an entirely different adventure all together.

I will be in Pai until the end of the week, and Saturday I will head down to Chiang Mai where I will stay two nights before taking a night train down to Bangkok. We have already booked two nights at a hotel in Bangkok where I will go directly after the night train, and then head to the airport that night to meet Dave.

It will be the most epic and glorious run-and-jump hug the world has ever seen.

After Bangkok for two nights, we will be taking the night train together (oh how I can't wait to share that rich experience) down south and spend a week or so on the beaches before heading back up north. Eventually we will get up to Chiang Mai and head over to Chiang Rai where I will take a day to do a border run and extend my visa for two more weeks. We will be finishing the whirlwind vacation in Pai doing what everyone does best here: beautiful, sweet nothing. Dave goes home around the 21st and it looks like I will be not far behind him.

Counting down the days... I will be sure and share how that airport hug goes :)

I Have Seen a Monk...

*Smoke a cigarette
*Eat a doughnut
*Add me on facebook?
*Shirtless
*Do their laundry
*Text on their iphone (Where do they get the money for those??)
*Wear some sweet Crocs
*Smile all day long
*Pick their nose
*Say the words "make love" (I never thought it could be worse than when your parents said it...)
*Check a girl out
*Drink a coke
*Laugh with his monk buddies
*Look bored as hell
*Sit under a tree and make the fallen flowers to spell out words <3

Let's Take This Nomadic Cat Out of the Bag...

Well friends, I suppose this would be a good time to share some news. I am coming home.

 I have written this blog post about 4 times now, each time deleting it and deciding to write it another night. This is partly because I didn't want to commit to this decision and share it with other people in case I decided to change my mind. But also because I have been weary to receive people's reactions to it.

I won't be leaving until after Dave is here, and by that time I will have been traveling for almost 4 months. Many of you have already heard through the grapevine that I have been thinking of coming home. I have already received a few emails from people wanting an explanation or recommending I rethink my decision. At first, I felt my typical reaction- defensive, angry, needing to explain myself. Today, I really got my thoughts in a knot over it, having an imaginary conversation (it was more like a one-sided argument) with all the people that might make me feel ashamed for not being gone long enough (I am not even sure these people exist, but we've already been over what my mind is capable of conjuring up). And then I just stopped. I was midway through  a thought about becoming a recluse, and I just realized: everyone will have their opinion. The same way that everyone had their opinion when I left (some bad some good), people will also have the same when I return. I can't stop any of you from having an opinion on what you think I should do. And there is no way that I can sit all of you down and explain to you what those four months will mean to me. Even if I had a video of every moment of this trip, none of you will truly understand. The same way I can't fully understand your lives. And that's kind of what makes everyone's journey really beautiful, they are all unique and special to us.

 I don't need to type out the reasons that I have decided not to teach and live here for longer. And I'm not going to . All I can tell you is that 4 months is exactly the amount of time this trip needs to be for me. Any longer amount of time for me, I will just be here trying to prove something to other people. I am not going home because I am homesick. This has not been a decision of desperation. I am going home because this is the choice I want to make. I have met many people on the last leg of their travels about to go home after one month, three months, eight months, one year of traveling. I am so endlessly blessed to have such a wonderful life to return home to. I have safety, comfort, opportunities, choices, love, and so much more in my live. Not everyone is going home to those things. I want to take some time to really appreciate these things with my family in a light and view that I didn't have before. I know that I can leave again when I am ready, and in that way I am truly a free and fortunate person.

I want to address the idea that I am having a once-in-a-lifetime experience right now. I am having such a wonderful experience right now, yes. However, I am 24, and I would like to point out that travels like this will not be once-in-my-lifetime. I will travel again. And again. And again. This wasn't some big opportunity that I won in a sweepstakes and need to milk it for all it's worth. I understand that point of view, because I can also see it that way. But I worked for this because I wanted it, and I can and will work for it again. The next time I travel will be even better, because of the experiences and lessons that I have learned here. I will not retire my backpack without putting more miles on it :)

I have decided that I won't be moving back to Portland immediately  After about a month of consideration, I decided will be moving back to Idaho Falls for the summer. I haven't been in Idaho Falls for more than two weeks since I moved away five and a half years ago. This means I haven't been able to spend more than a handful of days with my nephews (who are growing up way too fast), my grandmothers, my siblings, and any and all members of my family. My parents have made a wonderful amount of trips out to Portland over the years to see us, but I still don't feel like I see them enough either. My mom has summers off and my dad is in school this year (still so happy about that!!) and will have the summer off as well. I don't think I have ever had such a perfect opportunity to spend quality time with my whole family, even before I moved to Oregon. Mom and Dad are also in the process of making a small apartment above their garage. It will be close to finished by the time I am home, and if that doesn't just tie everything together, I don't know what else would. I will be working and saving up money for two or three months there to get back on my feet before I decide what I am going to do next. Portland, of course, is a choice I can make after that, but I am keeping my mind open to what is next for me.

I can't wait to see all your beautiful faces again. I also can't wait to put the things I've learned here into the real world and challenge myself again. I am looking forward to a beautiful summer full of gardens, cooking, the great outdoors, and my family.

-H

Thankful

I think I will eternally thank my 23 year old self for making the decision last year to do this. Thank you, thank you, thank you. I have been given everything that I have asked the universe for and I consider myself to be so blessed to say that. The key to getting what you ask for is being wide open to how that request is answered. It's almost always is different than what you imagined, but the universe has to shift around a lot of things to give you what you want, so things must just be taken as they are given and appreciated for what they are. Okay, I'm done with my hippy rant. Love you guys.

-H

Lazy Brunch: Perfected.

First off, for those of you who aren't on facebook, I have uploaded another album on there which has all my photos from the monastery and some of my current stay in Pai as well. Here is a link to those pictures: Album 3.

 I love technology.

This evening about an hour before sunset, Julie and I decided to take our scooters on a ride up through the hills east of Pai. She hasn't been that way yet, and I was just going to lead us through an hour-long loop that brings us back into town, but I decided to take a turn onto a dirt path about 20 minutes in. About a half a mile in, we were pretty shocked to realize there were 6 different elephants spread out over the fields we were stopped in. They must have been the elephants they do the tours with, but there was nobody else around, just Julie and I and various elephants munching on grasses. The sunset was especially smokey and fiery tonight, and being with the elephants as the sun went down was absolutely surreal.

Julie and the Elly

There are two elephants here, one on the left and one in the middle on the hill...

Smile!

The smoke here has kind of been making us sick. It's particularly bad this week, although I was told today that by the time Dave and I make it up here in about 3 weeks, it will be the beginning of the first rains and things should be much better. I have been feeling like I have had a cold the last few days, but it's just from the smoke making my throat, eyes, and nose irritated. Julie has been the same, so I am pretty sure we aren't getting sick.

We have had such a ball being lazy this week. Waking up whenever and then finding some shack on our street to have breakfast and sit and talk over coffee for two or three hours. By breakfast, I mean brunch. It's usually between 11 and 1. I've had rougher times in my life, let's just say that.

Hope you are doing well and then some. <3

-H

Pai, My Third Slice Around

I think he likes me

Here's what I've decided: Pai is good for my heart, bad for my blog. I have had no desire to sit down and type a single word this week. My agenda has been filled with lots of wonderful nothings and a strict schedule of forgetting what day it is, what time it is, and not planning for my departure of Pai whatsoever. It has already been a week here and I still haven't figured out what I am doing next. Dave will be here in two weeks and I will be meeting him in the airport in Bangkok, but I just haven't quite decided what will be filling my time until then.

My lovely Belgium friend Julie that I met on the night train at the beginning of my Thai adventure is here. If you remember, we had a fun night in the bar car on the overnight train to Bangkok and then traveled up to Chiang Mai together about 8 weeks ago. She is staying a couple of bungalows down from me and we have had a really nice time being separate but together in Pai. I say separate because we are both traveling alone and have both discovered how great it is to truly travel alone sometimes. It's really easy to constantly be sharing a room with a fellow traveler, weaving your plans into theirs, staying in the safety of someone else's company for a long time. Both of us have learned that sometimes you just need to get your own bungalow and spend some time doing your own thing to stay sane and happy.

My scooter with bonus cat included

Pai is quite smokey this time of year, it's the hot season and fields are being burned all over the valley. It's not the most picturesque time of year here, but it's still so beautiful. The smoke makes the sunsets firey orange. I have been renting a scooter all week, so I have been able to see much more of Pai this time around. This includes watching the sunset from the temple on the mountain if i feel so inclined, trips to the waterfalls in the area, rides rides through the countryside and hills here.

Smoke clouds in the valley

Juliekins

I always take comfort in knowing that we are all looking at the same moon and sun, even if it is from opposite sides of the world.

Good morning/night,
-H

Silent No More

March 19^th, 2013

Free speech has a whole new meaning

I am out of silence! I have been in silence for three full days, only speaking a little bit to my 60-something Norwegian roommate at night to offer things to help each other sleep better. THREE DAYS with no speaking. Not just being alone with nobody to talk to for three days, but surrounded by people I wanted to talk to, including three friends of mine who arrived at the monastery on my  second day of silence. I couldn’t believe all the chattering my mind did once I stopped my mouth. Most of the time, I imagine my thoughts being made of images or little movies, not whole sentences. Boy did that change. After my first day of silence, it wasn’t so peaceful anymore- at least not in my head. Not only did I begin to hear my mind trailing on whole sentences, but whole paragraphs were being recited at a time. I even had conversations with my own mind, begging it to JUST SHUT UP PLEASE AND THANK YOU.

If only my mind would abide by this rule...

I have felt awful for exactly three days, and this has made silence even more difficult. I have had so much exhaustion, paired nicely with a dull but sometime pulsing headache between my eyes and in the back of my head. I felt so groggy, so tired, by the third day I was about ready to cash in my chips and just leave Thailand all together. It could have been a lot of things, not eating after 11am for three days straight, cutting myself off from the yucky instant coffee they offer here, all the thoughts banging around in my brain, all the stress those thoughts brought me. Who knows, but the good news is that today I woke up at exactly 6am and just about jumped to my feet. I feel great today! AND I am speaking today. What a strange feeling, I keep getting the feeling that I am speaking in a library when I talk today, breaking the rules. I am finding myself instantly wanting to blah blah blah all over the place. However, I am really trying to take care of my words and choose them, rather than just let the internal monologue spill out onto everyone I come in contact with. I feel my mind wanting to speak anything, but my heart is wanting to speak softly and kindly.

That “silence” nametag I have been wearing during this time has been really good for me. There was a moment, on my second day here, when I was in a room with several other English speaking girls who I had met on my arrival here, before I had gone into silence. These girls talked a lot. The rule here is that you can speak, but it is encouraged to please speak softly and not too much. All these girls wanted to talk about was how they couldn’t wait to leave the next day, and how they had learned all they could in their three days there. These girls did not come here together, but they obviously enjoyed congregating to share their complaints. I understand that. After working in restaurants and retail for several years, sometimes it just feel so good to get out all your bad feelings and share those bad feelings with other people. It makes you feel less alone. One girl came running in, immediately filling the whole room with her distress. She said that a girl had just told her to keep her shoes tidy and that her feet were dirty. Now, it sounds like the girl who told her this could have maybe been a bit more kind with her words. But at the same time, as I listened to this girl retell the same short story over and over and over again (I was at the other end of the room by the way, observing) and it was clear that she was really trying to get the other girls wrapped up in her bad feelings as she cried and cried and cried.  I felt for her. I really did, because I have been that person before. I have been the one who cried at the tip of a hat, because I needed to, but also because I wanted to. I have been that person who is constantly reacting to every person, place, or thing that came into my bubble. But reacting is a knee-jerk reaction, and when we do it to everything, we don’t ever give ourselves a minute to think about how we want to be in that moment.

My  first urges were to console this person and take on her feelings for her and try to fix them like the other girls were fumbling to do. But I had just started my silence, and I was able to just walk away. I didn’t need to give her any of my energy at all. And that’s something I do a lot, giving away my energy and taking on other people’s instead. I don’t want to do that all the time. It’s tiring, and it’s confusing not knowing who’s energy you are holding. It is mine? Is it hers? Is it somebody else’s? In reality, I didn’t need to be in silence to do that. I can just walk away, but I never let myself do that. Then I would feel guilty for not helping here, regardless of what it ended up leaving me with. Giving myself permission to just walk away the last three days has been really freeing and eye opening to a different way I can live my life if I need to. My energy is important to me, and I would like to treat it as more of a gift I chose to give, instead of something I owe people around me.

Wat Tam Wua

March 6th, 2013

30 hours into my meditation retreat, and I am already being shown how stubborn my ego still is. I arrived yesterday afternoon around 4pm. After a beautiful but absolutely sweltering 1 mile walk from the bus stop with three Russians, we were given the rules (which are quite relaxed compared to almost all the other retreats I was checking out) and told to relax until meditation at 6. I did pretty good last night and this morning, but this afternoon and night have been quite tough. The schedule here goes something like this:

5am- Wake up and meditate on your own in your room.

6:30- Meet at dining hall and have rice offering ceremony to the monks.

7:00 Breakfast!

8:30-10:30 Morning meditation: walking, sitting, and laying

11:00-Lunch! (There is no dinner, no eating after noon)

1:00-3:00pm Afternoon meditation: walking, sitting, and laying

4:00-5:00 Monastery cleaning (sweeping, cleaning, helping)

6:30-8:30 Evening chanting and meditation

9:00-10:00 Personal meditation in room

Bed.

So, let me break a few of these things down. First of all, it seems getting up at 5 is pretty optional, nobody is going to make you meditate in your room, and for me personally, 6 hours of meditation a day is proving difficult enough, I don’t feel the calling to add an extra hour before and after my day just yet. Most people wake up at 6. The food here is pretty good, traditional Thai stuff like rice and various vegetable dishes (it’s all vegetarian). All day we are welcome to tea, coffee, and cocoa. That’s right, coffee and cocoa are cool here. After today, I realize that it’s because it is downright difficult to stay lively and awake when sitting so many hours a day when you don’t eat after 11 am. Any hours not accounted for in the above schedule are do-what-you-like hours. Today I read and took some pictures in the morning. OH by the way, I just need to add that this is one of the most beautiful places I have ever been. We are snuggled between two towering mountains with ponds and wonderful smelling shrubbery and flowers. The pictures can’t possibly do it justice, but I can do my best to show you…

Walking meditation is a new one for me. It basically consists of all of us in our white outfits to form a line (boys first, girls after) and follow a monk in various patterns around the property walking vvveeeerrryyy slllowwwwlllyy. As in steps that take 5 seconds each. And I don’t mean 1,2,3,4,5. I mean 1-one thousand 2-one thousand, 3-one thousand, etc. Go ahead and try that out and see how incredibly unnatural that feels. AT FIRST. But after one solid hour of it (yes that’s right), it actually does sort of put you in a trance. A meditative trance, in fact.  We are given a mantra to say in our heads on the inhale and exhale of each step, and I can’t help but feel that we are a bunch of white zombies walking across the grounds when we do this. But it’s great.

The monk leading our morning walking meditation.

This morning I was able to get quite deep into my laying meditation, but the afternoon was freaking hot and I felt considerably more sour and grouchy from the heat than I did in the morning. When we switched to the laying meditation, I was prepared to get all into it again like in the morning, but when I opened my eyes, my face went into complete discomfort and stayed that way for most of the 40 minutes. This was due to the GIANT spider that was cleaning each of it’s 230985 legs while balancing in its web. Folks, this is the stuff my nightmares are made of. Luckily it wasn’t exactly above me, about two people over. And all I could think was “DEAR GOD MAN OPEN YOUR EYES- HOW CAN YOU MEDITATE AT A TIME LIKE THIS?? That spider will be there tomorrow too. UUUHG.

But HaLee, you are in Thailand. How could you let a spider ruin your inner peace after you’ve come so far?? If you aren’t already thinking that, trust me, I did. But let me just go ahead and show you what these spiders look like, because there is also one right outside the evening meditation building that we all get to look at on our way to our beds at night. They also reside in several of the trees here. And now, they will reside in my dreams and haunt me until the end of time:

Also, there is a bird or a ghost or something that is making the most frightening noise about once every 20 minutes here in my room. Enough to make me jump out of my skin.

 OK OK OK SELF. Calm down. I know you were bitten by 5 fire ants today, and you saw that spider, and all the coffee you drank is making you so on edge. CALM DOWN I SAY.

Meditation tonight was just so out of the question. I tried. I really did. But I ended up spending the hour of darkness sitting with all my fellow meditators just hating myself for sitting there with a storm cloud over my head. Hating, and then opening my heart and letting in pure love. And then hating. And then pure love. And so on. I also had a stomach ache tonight and wasn’t sure if I needed to barf or not, so I am going to try again tomorrow with the whole love part, minus the self-loathing.  ANTS JUST LEAVE ME ALONE I AM IN BED FOR #$)%* SAKE!!!

Goodnight loves,

H

I am exhausted and I still have 6 more days. I knew this would be hard, and I know I can do this. 

The Short of It

I asked anyone I could about how their time at a monastery was before I went. How was it? Did it change you? Are you more zen now? Can you meditate better? Now I understand their answers, which were always kind of vague and passive, but happy.

 My time at the monastery was everything. It was happy, sad, frustrating, angry, upsetting, beautiful, wonderful, scary, boring, exciting, deep. I experienced just about every emotion on a daily basis. I am still in amazement at how strong my mind is. And I don't mean strong as in willpower strong. I mean strong as in stubborn. It's a miracle I have ever been able to put my mind to anything it didn't want to do. (Now that I'm thinking about it...have I?...) I have a mind that will throw you on your back if you get it in a corner. Because that's what it did to me. My first half of my stay was in silence, something that is no small feat and should always be regarded as a super power if you ever come across someone who can be in true silence for longer than a day. The silence turned my mind on itself and began to form long, run-on sentences about my inabilities and yell them into my ear. Those sentences turned into paragraphs as the week went on, and eventually (and I am being literal here) I was having full blown arguments in my mind, with my mind.
 By the time I left, I felt really connected to the energy there, and was almost sad to leave it. I left this morning with some of the peace that I went there looking for. I wrote several entries while I was there, which I will post with pictures tomorrow. I had a really good experience, and even though I still am not the best mediater on the block, I had some really beautiful experiences this week. Know that I am doing well, and I hope that you guys are too. 

-H

Tea+Crepes+Cat

Just a quick post here- today was full of me stuffing my face and drinking as much tea as I could get my hands on (a cup of chai, a cup of ginger lime honey, a whole pot of some black tea, and finished my day with some thai tea. I should be hydrated, yeah?). It was a perfect day here. It rained on and off all day keeping the air cool and clean feeling. It felt so nice that I even forgave the humidity for the things it did to my hair today :)
I let myself do a little shopping. I got a couple of tops and a box of crayons. I am hoping I get a little creative energy at the monastery with all my down time, and since I couldn't seem to find any colored pencils, I decided crayons would just have to do. Geeze, how long has it been since I colored with crayons...

On my way back from indulging in a peanut butter banana chocolate crepe (Yeah mom, I caved), I saw a HUGE toad hopping across the road, just like last night- only this one had a baby toad hooked on it's back AND another baby toad following it around. Alas, I had no camera. But just imagine it, I am sure whatever you come up with will do it justice. It was awesome.

The cat that lives at the hostel I am in looks a lot like my kitty back home, Sierra, just less soft and a little bigger. It's also lacking the beautiful rusty colored stripes, but it more than made up for it in purrs and cuddles. Yep, I'm huggin street cats in Thailand.

Sierra look-alike

Misty mountains in the distance from Pai today

Chai in Pai

Pai Pai Pai!

 I am back again in my most favorite little Thailand town. And just in time too, it has been raining on and off here the last couple of days and the weather is SO nice and cool and clean feeling. What a relief from spending my last few afternoons in my upstairs room in Chiang Mai melting into a miserable sweaty puddle. I woke up yesterday morning and decided to make my way up here instead of staying in the city another day, and I am so glad I did. 

I took my sweet time getting to the bus station, even though my brain kept telling me "OMG you need to get on top of this and get your bus ticket and make sure you dont miss a bus and blah blah blah!" I listened to my heart and walked around the old city square instead most of the morning, spending some time in an air conditioned coffee shop and then stopping for breakfast and tea at an outdoor cafe. I even took some time to read with a pot of tea. Before I caught a ride to the bus station, I stopped in at the pharmacy and got some motion sickness pills- there was NO way I was going to barf in a bag again like I did on my way back from Pai a few weeks ago. 

By the time I wandered into the bus station around noon, there was a bus rounding people up for Pai exactly as I walked up! The driver said "You go to Pai?" I said "Yes please!" He said don't worry about standing in line to get a ticket, just get in and you can pay on the way. Wonderful timing :) Had I been 5 minutes later, I would have had to wait for at least an hour or two for the next shuttle. Just as I had felt, everything worked out how it should.

 The hilarious part is that I ended up in that exact same front middle seat that I had to ride in last time! Out of ALL the seats on the shuttle, there I was, between the driver and a kid dressed in army gear the whole way up. But thanks to my motion sickness tablet, I was nausea-free and feeling kind of euphoric! Maybe it was the sleepy side effect that the pharmacist told me I might get from the pills, but I had a very pleasant ride up. The driver was really nice and drove much less crazy than my past drivers. It began to rain on our ride to Pai, and it felt SO much like I was driving to the coast in Oregon. It had such a PacificNW feel to it <3 I miss you my little Oregonians. I will try and send you some sunshine, please try and send me more rain. (Who would have thought I would ever ask for more rain from Oregon??)

I hadn't decided yet if I was going to stay in Pai for a night or try and go straight to Mae Hong Son to the monastery  but I figured that the decision would work itself out as it was supposed to.  It turns out that there weren't any more buses going to Mae Hong Son for the day, so my decision was made! I was happy to stay in Pai anyway, so no hard feelings there. I found a great little dorm room right away for 100 baht per night, right on this great little road in town. Once I was settled in, I decided that I would stay in Pai overnight, and also the next day. Might as well, the weather is fine and I am feeling good. So today is Monday and I will be going to the bus station to check out my ticket to the monastery here in a bit to leave tomorrow.

Ahhhhhh. Going with the flow is SO much nicer than trying to figure everything out. The world has it all figured out for you, just relax! This is my cheesy spiritual insight for the day :)

I am at a little cafe right now with a pot of earl grey tea. I found several great places that make wonderful chai tea here in Pai. I have had 3 chai teas in the last 24 hours, so I am making good use of my time here obviously. 

The monastery has no internet from what I have researched, so I won't be posting this week. I do love emails from you guys though, and nothing is better from an internet hiatus then seeing my inbox filled with hellos and loves from you guys! I hope everyone has a wonderful, inspiring week in the coming days <3

I spy with my little eye....

Toadally posing. Is he angry?

-H

My "Me" Day: Pancakes and Flowers of Course.

Today was a day just for me. I am beginning to see the importance of having these days from time to time while I am here. I am able to reflect to myself what I have been feeling, and it gives me a better appreciation for the time I spend with other people when I can be alone for a while. Otherwise my energy gets split up too much and I get exhausted.

I started the day with a few new mosquito bites (what's new?) and a papaya that I bought at the market yesterday. I have a little pocket knife and mini spoon I bought a couple of weeks ago and I am really enjoying being able to buy fruit whole and eating it when I want to. I washed some clothes in the sink and hung them about my room to dry for the day, and then headed to a little cafe down the street called Blue Diamond that I have been frequenting ever since Caroline showed it to me. It's not the cheapest place to eat, but they sell natural and organic baked goods and food at the cafe and I am absolutely never disappointed. Today I decided to just go all-out since I know I won't be able to eat much at the monastery, and I started with a cookie thing that is made from cocoa, oats and is sweetened with dates. I may be already familiar with this cookie because I had two of them on Wednesday... I then ordered a rice flour cashew cinnamon raisin carrot pancake with a fried egg on top. Don't believe that all those things can coexist on one plate? Don't worry, I took a picture...

I spent the rest of the morning sipping an Americano, writing in my journal, and reading a good book in the cafe. Good morning indeed :)

I hopped on my bike and came back to my room just in time to Skype Dave for his birthday evening. He was at a bar in Tigard and I was able to video chat with him, Robin, Kim, and Brandon! Alcohol had been consumed by all, so it was quite an amusing call ;)

I decided that I wanted to bike to a big market they have outside the old city square and try to find a mosquito net. Having a bike makes me feel SO much more free here! I can't believe that I took so long to rent one, at 50 baht a day, it's a really easy and cheap form of transportation. Earlier this week I was able to bike to the park in the morning and do yoga with Caroline for a few hours- the world is my oyster when I have wheels!

Anyway, the ride to Warrot market was a hot one, but you should have seen me maneuver the traffic on my bike. I was pro. I decided it was an aromatherapy kind of trip I guess, because I ended up treating myself to a little bottle of lotus-scented essential oil (instead of perfume, I have switched to oils), a tiny bouquet of purple flowers, and a necklace strewn of fresh jasmine flowers. OH the smells!

My jasmine necklace and little bundle of flowers.

Which brings me to a new favorite place that I have found in Chiang Mai- the flower market! . My nose has taken some serious abuse here in the city streets, but the flower market really made me a happy girl. 

The smells were wonderful.

The flowers are wonderful. 

My jasmine necklace is absolutely wonderful.

And at 15 cents per strand, I should really be buying one every day, right?? I love buying myself flowers!

I like to call these Pooh-bear heads.

I wanted to add a picture from the farm that my English friend Rick took with his shmancy camera on our last day!

What a great group of people we had last week. I am really glad I met them all :) I had a good talk once I got back to the city with my friend Caroline, and also my mom, about why I had a hard time with my energy at the farm. Caroline is very into zodiac signs and astrology and hit the nail on the head when she observed something Libras tend to do. They are always scanning a situation to see where they can sync up with other people's energys. Whether it's a group of 20, 4, or just 1 person, they are always reading people's moods and energys to see where theirs fits in. I have always known that I am an energy sponge. I absorb what other people are feeling very very easily, and I can get lost in what other people are feeling. Often times I end up having a hard time knowing how I feel about something because of this. Especially if it's new people, because I hate conflict and always want to come off as being likable. It can be really exhausting, and more importantly, it's not who I really am. I think with all the new people, me going alone, and people coming and going throughout the week at the farm, I subconsciously struggled with myself without understanding what was going on. But ahhh, how much clarity one can have in hindsight!

I am feeling better about my emotional distress now, and I am feeling much more ready to do meditation for a week. I believe it will be another week without internet and communication. It is just so nice to talk to you all after not talking for a week! Like dessert for my week :) Hope you all have a great weekend, smell some jasmine if you get a chance, ok?

Love, H