LOOKING BACK: Thailand 2012

This is where the crazy started...  right in the heart of Bangkok, good ol' BKK.  Upon arrival, I didn't know that BKK would become my travel hub and home away from home.  It's a busy, hot, polluted mess.  But it also became my respite after all of my travels.  I ceased to be a tourist/backpacker there and saw it as a place for me to restock my supplies, refuel my body with Western food, refuel my brain with new release films in shiny new movie theaters, buy clothing that could actually fit my Western body, function like I would in the US with it's great public transportation, and meet with friends and family for dinner and good, quality (imported) beers.  

Thailand is also where I reconnected with my mother - the reason for me even coming to Asia in the first place.  I'll be perfectly honest, I had zero desire to ever come to Asia.  But after considerable thought and too many odd and interestingly well-timed messages from the universe, I realized that it didn't make sense to travel around the world when I had always wanted to reconnect with my mother and meet my Thai family.  I had some emotional luggage I needed to deal with and what better time than (what was then) the present?  

Now that I've traveled and am now living here, I can't say that somehow it was all meant to be and everything fell into place here - life just doesn't work like that.  What it did was present more questions, more of life to consider in the long run, and more signs from the universe that I'm where I'm supposed to be for now until it's time to move again.  I fell in love with Thailand, and more specifically with Chiang Mai.  Between the incredible people whose culture I'm still trying to figure out daily, their unfaltering faith in Buddhism, their amazing resourcefulness, the crazy motorcycle drivers, the big green mountains covered in jungle, and the spicy Thai food is where I found a place I wanted to call home.