When you are on a holiday, you revel in the differences you find every day, you enjoy the fact that everything is completely different from what you know of normality. You spend every day exploring and no time resting; but sooner or later there comes a time when you have to slow down. Your exploring becomes different then, whilst you still search for adventure, you begin somewhat of a new search... The search for normality. As humans we are creatures of habit, we enjoy the calm of the familiar. Anything outside of that is a holiday of sorts. "Change is as good as a holiday", people say and I think, to a degree, a place like Chiang Mai will always be a holiday for us in one way or another.
Living in a place like Chiang Mai is amazing, it's relaxed and stress free. Coming here, we knew we were headed for paradise and since arriving here, it has been nothing but relaxed and stress free; every bit of the paradise we remembered. But now we find ourselves moving past the initial holiday feeling and moving more into a state of day-to-day life and that involves getting to know the other side of Chiang Mai - which is what we came here to do. Right now we are only scratching the surface of who and what Chiang Mai really is.
But now the search begins for the calm of the familiar - the little things in your day that start to make this place feel like home. Of course this is not something that can be established overnight, it never happens simply because you will it to. It is almost a state of mind that you have to reach before you can even start to recognize what it is that you consider to be normal - or maybe just a craving you have after not experiencing something for a while - a good piece of cheese, a drink without sugar or even dealing with someone who speaks proper English! Whatever the reasoning is, those cravings have begun and simple though they are, they have awakened a new and different kind of adventure - because where do you find a sense of normality in a chaotic place such as this?!!
It could go on forever, this list of things that are different, weird and wonderful all at the same time. Walking home a couple of days ago, I saw two guys adding new power lines to what seemed like a group of electrical wires that had maxed out its safety potential 10 lines ago. They were on bamboo ladders, and the only safety gear they were wearing was a pair of gardening gloves, so what did I do? Stopped and took a photo of it, of course! This is the kind of thing you see every day in Chiang Mai and the strangeness of it has not yet faded. But then there are the days when you are hot and tired and just want to get where you were going, or get what you came for and it all begins to be too much. These moments don't happen every day, nor do they make me want to jump on the first plane home, what they do though, is remind me that this is exactly what we were looking for.
Speaking with other travelers, it seems that they too are on this search, to get to know the heart and soul of this beautiful city and what we all come across is both good and bad. A friend of mine showed up to lunch the other day and opened the conversation with "I have had it up to here with these bloody lady-boys" and proceeded to launch into a tale about the red light district of Chiang Mai. Another friend had to battle for 4 hours with her non-English speaking landlord last week, to have her bond returned when she was moving from her accommodation.Yet with these kind of bad experiences occurring, these people seem to still have the original love that they found for Chiang Mai and these experiences aside, they are still getting to know the city, just like me.
But when normal does pop up occasionally it is refreshing, yesterday I found and bought a wheel of Camembert cheese from a 'supermarket' and proceeded to eat the lot! Today I had lunch with a group of friends and talked about shopping, food, relationships and parties - completely normal. Tomorrow, no doubt, I will find a number of weird and wonderful experiences in my day with a healthy dose of normal to balance it out. After all, life is one big balancing act right?
Living in a place like Chiang Mai is amazing, it's relaxed and stress free. Coming here, we knew we were headed for paradise and since arriving here, it has been nothing but relaxed and stress free; every bit of the paradise we remembered. But now we find ourselves moving past the initial holiday feeling and moving more into a state of day-to-day life and that involves getting to know the other side of Chiang Mai - which is what we came here to do. Right now we are only scratching the surface of who and what Chiang Mai really is.
But now the search begins for the calm of the familiar - the little things in your day that start to make this place feel like home. Of course this is not something that can be established overnight, it never happens simply because you will it to. It is almost a state of mind that you have to reach before you can even start to recognize what it is that you consider to be normal - or maybe just a craving you have after not experiencing something for a while - a good piece of cheese, a drink without sugar or even dealing with someone who speaks proper English! Whatever the reasoning is, those cravings have begun and simple though they are, they have awakened a new and different kind of adventure - because where do you find a sense of normality in a chaotic place such as this?!!
It could go on forever, this list of things that are different, weird and wonderful all at the same time. Walking home a couple of days ago, I saw two guys adding new power lines to what seemed like a group of electrical wires that had maxed out its safety potential 10 lines ago. They were on bamboo ladders, and the only safety gear they were wearing was a pair of gardening gloves, so what did I do? Stopped and took a photo of it, of course! This is the kind of thing you see every day in Chiang Mai and the strangeness of it has not yet faded. But then there are the days when you are hot and tired and just want to get where you were going, or get what you came for and it all begins to be too much. These moments don't happen every day, nor do they make me want to jump on the first plane home, what they do though, is remind me that this is exactly what we were looking for.Speaking with other travelers, it seems that they too are on this search, to get to know the heart and soul of this beautiful city and what we all come across is both good and bad. A friend of mine showed up to lunch the other day and opened the conversation with "I have had it up to here with these bloody lady-boys" and proceeded to launch into a tale about the red light district of Chiang Mai. Another friend had to battle for 4 hours with her non-English speaking landlord last week, to have her bond returned when she was moving from her accommodation.Yet with these kind of bad experiences occurring, these people seem to still have the original love that they found for Chiang Mai and these experiences aside, they are still getting to know the city, just like me.
But when normal does pop up occasionally it is refreshing, yesterday I found and bought a wheel of Camembert cheese from a 'supermarket' and proceeded to eat the lot! Today I had lunch with a group of friends and talked about shopping, food, relationships and parties - completely normal. Tomorrow, no doubt, I will find a number of weird and wonderful experiences in my day with a healthy dose of normal to balance it out. After all, life is one big balancing act right?
No comments:
Post a Comment