Held

Held up in Bangkok a little longer. At Hua Lamphong Station last night, the nice people in uniforms told me that Chiang Mai was flooded, so you can't get there at the moment. Sat and pondered what trains were going where that evening, wondering, "Cambodia? Laos? Wherever shall I go?" Then realized I needed to get prepped before I went to Laos. Got a cab. Got a room. Rereading my old notes and interviews, reading articles on the web, getting my brain back around the topic. Getting ready to resume working on my book. Tired of being a drifting expat without enough purpose.

I have been feeling out of sorts, like "what the hell am I doing here?" Tired of Thailand. Some internal wrangling going on about the future of this voyage. Looking forward to trying to learn and achieve something. I was certainly learning in Myanmar, but that was a very difficult country. Not that Lao is that much easier, but I've got so much more background there. Time to go.

One thing that was so challenging about Myanmar was the isolation. There's a regular push-pull in my travelling world between the need for western company and the need to flee them to regain self-determination. I was a happy guest in many ways at my friend's house where I've been staying these ten days, but I was not making all my own choices, making sure to be doing right by myself. In some ways, one could consider it an argument in favor of selfishness, to not get attached to people so that you can determine your own course, but then the flip side is you've got to go find people with whom to chat. Or maybe it just means get a job.

It's just as well that Chiang Mai was blocked. So I'm here in the backpacker ghetto, where there are cheap computer resources and lodging, doing what I tought I might do up there. Parking my butt in front of a computer.

Cheers all.

T