Outside Chiang Rai Thailand I got stuck at a place 45 mins away from the city because I didn't know the TukTuks stopped going out there past 5pm. My phone had also run out of batteries... I started what would be probably a 3 hour walk along a rural road in 35 degree heat... At about an hour in, I passed a family of three sitting on the steps of their house. I approached them then hand gestured my way through an explaination of what happened, they were amused, and then asked if I could pay him to give me a ride into town. He obliged and I hopped on this random guys scooter and embraced his waistline for 25 minutes on our way back to the city lol.
The same night I was sitting outside of a club at 2am getting air, and this local guy brought came up to me with a weight scale and started wagering me on who could better guess the weight of random objects on the street. And it turned into this whole thing for like an hour where me and like 8 other people were weighing random stuff and betting on it. At one point this women asked me to weigh her baby so I was holding this random woman's baby and standing on the scale to get the difference. It was ridiculous. I'm pretty sure this guy was a scammer but we just hit it off it was so much fun haha. Would never do that at home but when I travel something about me opens up its great.
I just laughed out loud imagining the imagery LOLL I was only there for a conference some time ago so I didn't get to explore as much as I wanted to. But that memory you just described reminds me of the day I spent on the Hanoi train tracks.
It was the first time I've spooned with a total stranger for an extended period :P. If it were a movie Breakaway by Kelly Clarkson would have been playing for sure.
The train system in Tokyo is so overwhelming. And when you look at the maps and see zero English it's like 'welp'. I would have just started walking too haha
100% fully agree, take the extra chili! It sounds like you had a wonderful trip, and thank you for sharing some of the moments. Travel is about learning and exploring, and you nailed it.
Umi, Thank you for sitting with us and sharing your growth, through the eyes of uncomfortableness. Those moments, the spontaneous sparks of life that slip through the gaps of the unseen, those are real life. It’s funny. You gained more insight, and I am starting to understand that you are deeply into understand your true self, you have a journey for this, it seems to me, but you learned more than the money you pay a therapist to present to you—in another packaged language. I have had a few of those moments, similar to yours, and I treasure them. Being drunk with Taiwanese businessmen who repeatedly told me to “go back to America and make Taiwan the 51st state of America” while I carried one of them on my back. Yup. Rice wine did that. Thank you for reminding me that self analysis, the preparation, is not a substitute for the stickiness, the clay and the mud of real living. Great writing!
Very fitting that you chose a picture of Vietnam for this - there is something infectious and inspiring about their emotional flexibility, as well as their warmth
Outside Chiang Rai Thailand I got stuck at a place 45 mins away from the city because I didn't know the TukTuks stopped going out there past 5pm. My phone had also run out of batteries... I started what would be probably a 3 hour walk along a rural road in 35 degree heat... At about an hour in, I passed a family of three sitting on the steps of their house. I approached them then hand gestured my way through an explaination of what happened, they were amused, and then asked if I could pay him to give me a ride into town. He obliged and I hopped on this random guys scooter and embraced his waistline for 25 minutes on our way back to the city lol.
The same night I was sitting outside of a club at 2am getting air, and this local guy brought came up to me with a weight scale and started wagering me on who could better guess the weight of random objects on the street. And it turned into this whole thing for like an hour where me and like 8 other people were weighing random stuff and betting on it. At one point this women asked me to weigh her baby so I was holding this random woman's baby and standing on the scale to get the difference. It was ridiculous. I'm pretty sure this guy was a scammer but we just hit it off it was so much fun haha. Would never do that at home but when I travel something about me opens up its great.
I just laughed out loud imagining the imagery LOLL I was only there for a conference some time ago so I didn't get to explore as much as I wanted to. But that memory you just described reminds me of the day I spent on the Hanoi train tracks.
It was the first time I've spooned with a total stranger for an extended period :P. If it were a movie Breakaway by Kelly Clarkson would have been playing for sure.
The train system in Tokyo is so overwhelming. And when you look at the maps and see zero English it's like 'welp'. I would have just started walking too haha
100% fully agree, take the extra chili! It sounds like you had a wonderful trip, and thank you for sharing some of the moments. Travel is about learning and exploring, and you nailed it.
Umi, Thank you for sitting with us and sharing your growth, through the eyes of uncomfortableness. Those moments, the spontaneous sparks of life that slip through the gaps of the unseen, those are real life. It’s funny. You gained more insight, and I am starting to understand that you are deeply into understand your true self, you have a journey for this, it seems to me, but you learned more than the money you pay a therapist to present to you—in another packaged language. I have had a few of those moments, similar to yours, and I treasure them. Being drunk with Taiwanese businessmen who repeatedly told me to “go back to America and make Taiwan the 51st state of America” while I carried one of them on my back. Yup. Rice wine did that. Thank you for reminding me that self analysis, the preparation, is not a substitute for the stickiness, the clay and the mud of real living. Great writing!
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Very fitting that you chose a picture of Vietnam for this - there is something infectious and inspiring about their emotional flexibility, as well as their warmth