Life in Chiang Mai: My own personal paradise

It is coming to the end of my time in Chiang Mai, yet again, and I find myself sitting on our balcony looking out over Doi Suthep and thinking about how much a place can change you. When we first travelled to Chiang Mai four years ago it was just a stop on our honeymoon in Thailand; nothing more than another destination to visit. But within days we knew that this was the place that we wanted to be. So how can a few days in a simple city change your life? What exactly was it about this place that turned our world upside down? 

This is a topic of conversation that is thrown around here at many a dinner table. People from all over the world have got this Chiang Mai buzz and it drives them to return home, sell everything they own and just come back. So as I wander around this charming Thailand city in my last few days, this is what is on my mind. There are many tourist attractions here, which most of us only see when friends come to visit, but there is more to this town than temples, tigers and elephant trekking. Chiang Mai has heart. You can walk down any road (large or small) and just see life going on around you. And the Thai people know how to live! 

Every person I meet here is relaxed and they have this way about them that exudes a kind of personal satisfaction with their lives. Most of the expats who come here to live have done their fair share of travelling, but they too chose Chiang Mai as their home. With every conversation I have with one of these Chiang Mai converts, I am more and more convinced that the Western world has it wrong and that we were raised to achieve everything except our own happiness. We are herded into the workforce and expected to go forth and prosper, but there is no consideration for what we want out of life and the very few people who break away from this cookie-cutter mold, seem to end up moving away from entire lives that they have built. 

There is no one thing about Chiang Mai that causes what the rest of the world would consider as insanity, the more I think about it, the more I realise that it is not the place that keeps us here, it is the people. Day after day I meet both Thai people and Westerners who are in love with their life. Whether they have a lot or very little, the people you meet in a place like this are kind and sincere and happy. Of course every culture has its downfalls and being raised in Australia, there are many customs here which make no sense at all to me. But who wouldn't want to live in a place where sanuk (fun) is a main priority in everything you do? The people here are driven by the need to be happy and they truly enjoy their lives. For us Westerners who have been taught that happiness should take a back seat to achievement, it is a new way of life and for me, an inspiring way to live. 

So whether this is a word of warning about the addictive nature of Chiang Mai or a love letter to my own personal paradise, I can honestly say that every day of my life here is enchanting. Every day I spend in Chiang Mai makes me want more. Why? Because every day there is something about this place that makes me smile.

Just a few of the people who make Chiang Mai feel like home

Life in Chiang Mai: The Search for Normality

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?