Diary of a globetrotting family: Last days in Chiang Mai
And then we packed up. Again we readied to change places in Thailand, this time from Chiang Mai to Chiang Rai.
Travel from Chiang Mai to Chiang Rai
When traveling between these two northern Thailand cities, buses are the most popular way to go. They’re not the only way though. You can also find private vehicles, trains, and flights.
The last couple of days in a place are funny times. You’re in the same space, yet you are now in between time, space, place. You are physically in a location, but your mind is elsewhere. There are reservations to confirm—and departure times to meet. Packing lists to follow, and rooms, shelves, drawers, crannies, and nooks to check for every single thing you and yours own.
Transition times
For all the places I’ve traveled, or that Jodie and I have traveled, or that Jodie, the kids, and I have traveled, our last day or two in a place is always a sort of out-of-everything experience. Yet it’s also a space that is defined by contradiction.
I feel removed from where I am, yet I am completely present, doing my part, while Jodie and the kids do theirs, to help our packing and prep go smoothly. We talk about anything else we need to do before we leave, or the last things we want to do before we close and lock the door behind us for the last time.
Yet we also talk about the transit to get from this place to new place, and try to have some sense of what we might do at least during our first few new hours. Getting ready to go from Chiang Mai to Chiang Rai was no different.
Last days in Chiang Mai
In Chiang Mai, we spent a big chunk of our last day at Biscotti House, a lovely coffee shop, café, and bakery on the outskirts of the city. Jodie had connected with a group of worldschooling families. After a group of us met up the prior week, we decided we all wanted to meet up again. Some families would have already moved on, of course, but new faces were there today too.
While Connor and Aster played chess and card games, and romped with other kids, and made up their own maps, we adults chatted about the ins and outs of schooling, travel, and keeping our lives going well in the midst of the joys and stresses of global travel.
Back at the rental, Jodie worked on some further-out plans for our upcoming time in Vietnam. We folded laundry and packed up snacks.
Later that afternoon, we split up to make various snack runs. Jodie and Connor raided the nearby 7-11 for nori snacks and cheesy corn hat chips. Aster and I went a little farther, to the mall, to get more of the amazing Japanese Beard Papa’s creme puffs—again, with a full assortment of yuzu, vanilla, and chocolate fillings—that we had come to adore during our time in Chiang Mai.
A different winter holiday experience
During a bedtime walk around the central pool and courtyard, we saw that someone in a nearby building had covered their balcony in multi-colored holiday lights. The joyful glow reminded us that back home, it was winter, and chilly and wet, while we walked around the warm night in short sleeves and sandals.
Our final morning in the city, we had a 1 pm bus to catch from Chiang Mai to Chiang Rai.
For my and Jodie’s breakfast, I cleared out the fridge, making a fried rice with chicken, wood-ear mushrooms, garlic, and green onion. When I added soy sauce and water to glaze the chicken as it sizzled and sautéed, Connor said, “Oh, that looks like it’s right!”
We packed up the last bits and bobs: charged devices, charging cords, my yoga mat, some clothes. We washed the dishes and set the towels in a pile.
And then we left.
From Chiang Mai to Chiang Rai
For our last stop in Thailand—this time around, anyway. For a hill city, deep in the north of the country. Chiang Rai. And, we hoped as we boarded the post-lunch bus, that this winding mountain road would be more forgiving than the one we faced in Oaxaca.
“Sometimes worries come out at four o’clock in the morning, and they come with sharp teeth.”
Now that’s a bus ride
Can we have a little travel real talk? If you’ve been following our adventures, you may have seen that bus rides have not always been the brightest point in our travels. Getting from Bangkok to Chiang Mai overall went okay, but our all-day Oaxaca to La Crucecita journey was not for the faint of stomach.
So, as we boarded our one o’clock bus to take an afternoon three-and-a-half hour ride from Chiang Mai to Chiang Rai, it was with hope, trepidation, and Dramamine ready to deploy.
It’s hard to unpack anxiety before a travel day
My own worries for the day had started in the middle of the night. If you too are a parent, business owner, traveler, and/or overall any person involved in day-to-day adulting, you probably also know the feeling.
Sometimes worries come out at four o’clock in the morning, and they come with sharp teeth.
Actually, if my anxieties have powered up and found an opening, they usually wide-eye me around four. But not this night. Oh no.
Usually I get up around seven. On this night, as we got ready to leave, I woke up around five and just could not get back to sleep.
Would we keep managing our money well?
When would two payments owed to the business arrive?
Was this bus ride going to become a barf fest like Oaxaca?
Of course, when the initial worries come out to play and find an undefended banquet, the bigger anxieties leap into the feast.
What if Jodie got sick of me?
What if my writing stopped being a good career choice?
Would the bus crash?
Would one of us get injured so badly—
Nope, nope, nope. Stopping there.
I closed my eyes and took all the deep breaths I could, but this was one of those nights where I had a hard time easing up on the worries. Are any of them rational? Of course not. Our business is in decent shape. Jodie and I talk and connect in all the ways that matter, and we each are grateful to have one another.
As for the bus ride, sure, there’s always the outside chance something catastrophic could happen. But that’s the case whether we’re at home or across the world.
Leaving the worry behind
Finally giving up on sleep and getting up around 6:30, my worries soon met the foe they feared:
Facts.
Checking our mail service, I saw not one of the payments our wee company was waiting for. I saw both of them.
Quick side note there: A couple of days earlier, I’d called our mail service to make sure everything was okay with the account, so our contact there knew I’d been concerned. When mail comes in, we receive a scan of the envelope. Before she scanned the payment, she had added a bright orange sticky note, where she had written, “YAY!”
Suddenly, my worries lost their appetite. I thought of my amazing wife, and how I get to travel the world with my three favorite people. I reflected on the places we have been, and the places we are going to go.
Now my worries backed away from the table. Something was approaching, and suddenly they didn’t want to be nearby anymore.
I started getting ready, and working through the day’s tasks, the travel, the writing, and all that was to come. The big ole engine of my heart began to pump, turn, and thrive.
My anxieties cowered into a corner. Anxiety hates momentum, and now I was getting into the joy and business of the day. We were going to Chiang Rai.
We just had to survive the bus ride first.
On the bus to Chiang Rai
Last-minute things to do before catching the bus
Before we left the rental, we got an email update about our e-visa applications for Cambodia, which I had applied for a few days prior. Aster, apparently, was approved to go. The rest of us weren’t.
Turns our the scans of our passport ID pages hadn’t gone through correctly. I uploaded fresh ones.
Minutes later, our inbox refreshed: The whole family was now approved to visit the Kingdom of Cambodia. We fist-pumped the air. One country down. Now we were just waiting to hear about our Vietnam e-visas.
Winding through northern Thailand hill country
On the bus, the kids drank the last of the massive strawberry whipped creme shake frappe craziness that they had gotten at the station—complete with a thick swirl of whipped cream that I swear was as tall as my head.
I snapped a motion sickness pill in half and gave one to each kid, hoping that the sugar hadn’t defeated our anti-nausea mission.
Under low, pale and dark rounded clouds, the bus wound through thick forest and rolling hills. On the left side of the road, we passed a porcelain strawberry, about the size of two five-gallon buckets.
Farther along, the rusted rebar skeleton of a small shrine stood on a concrete pedestal that looked like it was becoming soft. If it hadn’t been the for the sloped roofs, golden Buddha statues, open-sided roadside cafes, and Thai script on the signs, I could have believed we were on a highway in western Oregon.
The kids relaxed. Dozed a little. Read on their e-readers. Even moved so they could sit together, and watched a Minecraft video they’d been saving.
And turn after turn, town after town, they felt fine.
Jodie and I then did something we hadn’t done on a bus: We relaxed. And we talked.
We talked about our week in Chiang Rai, and about school plans for the kids. But best of all, we talked about the business we own together, our wee company. We talked about 2023, and places we were going to be—and some big ideas for how we might make some travel plans in North America happen.
Arriving in Chiang Rai by bus
Before we knew it, the bus had arrived at the Chiang Rai bus station. Soon we were settled in to our hotel, which Jodie had found an amazing deal on. From our ninth-floor balcony, I stared out at the rolling hills—not dissimilar from the Blue Ridge of my hometown in Virginia, except, of course, for a hills capped with a white, 25-story Buddha statue.
Payments were going to the bank. My amazing wife had found us a beautiful place to stay, a little treat for our last destination in Thailand. The kids handled the bus ride with grace and calm. And Jodie and I were thinking big about our business.
Anxiety hates momentum. That night, I slept soundly, and didn’t wake until my alarm went off at seven.
Doesn’t sound very good! I probably wouldn’t pursue it either. Travel safe, love you.
Thank you for sharing your stories! I love reliving little memories of some of your destinations, and I also love how you’ve found ways to weave the kiddos into your travels.
Shoot, I’ll see if I can cancel the shipment of all that durian jerky I was going to send you for Christmas 🙂
So glad to hear it! Hearing all of your adventures was definitely a building block for our own.