Serendipity

                                                                     ANGKOR WAT

After months of non stop travel through southeast Asia I started to notice signs this nomadic wanderer was becoming a touch road weary. My energy and general sense of well being had unraveled and was at a low. I was in need of a break which is fairly normal for anyone who travels for extended periods.
When exploring and appreciating the profound beauty and the rich diversity of another country a person will occasionally have to deal with a few black snake's in the grass (the flip side or down side) and my energy level being a little low was definitely turning into one of those little black snakes.
As a backpacker always on the move and operating on a bit of a shoe string budget it's not always easy to find a healthy balance. Sometimes the diet suffers, rough overnight bus or mini van rides can cause sleep deprivation, arduous slow boat journeys that take days and leave the body numb and muscles desperately crying to be worked, many nights staying in dark windowless guest houses in areas that stay loud late into the night and wake up far to early are a constant, and having to deal with the daily barrage of people either trying to eek out a living or like myself just observing and moving through takes its toll leaving a person physically and emotionally exhausted.
It's in these experiences of delight and adversity that our stories of adventure find there life, and it's also where we become
acquainted with the deep fatigue that settles in over time causing stress or sickness and taking the fun out of it all. I had just spent a week exploring the mystery of what can only be described as the exquisite other worldly ruins of Angkor Wat on the outskirts of Siem Reap, Cambodia when I made the decision to find my sanctuary, a place to nest and recharge. I was still enjoying myself but could feel the telling signs my shell was starting to thin.
My idea was to find a spot by a beach where I
could swing in a hammock, eat delicious food, sip
strong morning coffee and entertain myself by
journal writing and pass the time reading a thick novel. I'd heard a rumor the Island of Ko Chang, Thailand was such a place. With its beautiful sandy beaches and clean inexpensive accommodation it sounded like the perfect place to hang my hat and get myself back on track.
I booked myself a seat on a bus leaving Siem Reap the following morning and if all went well I'd be exchanging buses at the Poipet border crossing later that afternoon then traveling south to Ko Chang. Easy peasy!


Interesting thing about the highway between Siem Reap and the Poipet border crossing into Thailand is that it's not paved or at least it wasn't at the time I traveled it. Because of this the road conditions are always iffy, it could either make for a very hot dusty trip or if during the rainy season an unbelievably muddy experience. I was told by Mike a traveling road warrior from the US who was also on the bus that day the reason the government of Cambodia never paved this stretch of highway was because everyone would start driving the distance and the airlines would take a financial hit. There could be some truth in that because there's no inexpensive way to fly out or into Cambodia. Most back packers like myself choose to go over land rather then pay upwards of $400 USD to fly from Siem Reap to Bangkok. As it turns out I was there during the rainy season and that particular year (07) it was especially wet.
The morning I left Siem Reap the bus was already an hour  behind schedule but that didn't matter because I had a couple of hours to wait for my connection once we got to the border anyway.


Other than hitting the occasional bump that would get the back end of the bus kangarooing everything went smoothly and we seemed to make good time. That is until we came up behind a long line of slow crawling traffic that eventually forced us to come to a stop. It was obvious everyone traveling on the highway that day was having troubles navigating the slippery gumbo conditions created by the weather. I'm sure driving or walking must have felt like being on a wet bar of Ivory soap. We'd sit for a time, slowly move ahead a little, then we would sit again until our driver got us as far as the situation would allow eventually having to stop completely and turn the engine off. There was a major traffic jam up ahead that involved a number of larger heavier highway rigs. They had created super deep ruts in the gumbo like mud and gotten bogged down. There was no way we'd be getting through until it was cleaned up. No one was moving except pedestrian traffic, scooter's and rice paddy tractors.
Over the next four hours I sat in the bus cultivating patience while observing the people of Cambodia migrating past.
A couple times Mike and I got off to stretch our legs and backs and watched everything from the side of the road.


As the hours passed from late morning well into the afternoon it become apparent watching the people and vehicles cautiously making their way along on what could hardly be called a highway to us living in the west that this was a very normal undertaking, no big deal really. A slight inconvenience but one they'd been experiencing for a lifetime. It was another day, just part of the interwoven fabric of life in Cambodia. I also realized that too much time had elapsed while we'd been sitting there waiting and I'd be lucky to make my connection with the bus at the border. This wasn't a total surprise. Since I began my travels in southeast Asia a few things had become quite clear to me. One of those was realizing I didn't have any control over anything. Plans were always subject to change, and in my case usually did and at that point I was getting use to it. When we did manage to get rolling again everyone on the bus beamed from ear to ear knowing we were moving closer to our destination. It was late when our bus finally pulled into the Poipat border crossing and it was there I had a choice to make.


Either book into a guesthouse and wait until the next day to catch a bus that would take me to Ko Chang or travel the next 3 hours to Bangkok.
Earlier in the day Mike and I had shared a few of our travel stories and he mentioned if I was looking to find a restful place to turtledown for a time I should seriously consider a small town in the northern mountains of Thailand called Pai.
I would have to catch a 12 hour overnight train out of Bangkok to the city of Chiang Mai then it would be another 3 hours further north through the mountains to get there. Truth is I really didn't want to spend the evening in Poipat, there was something about the place that didn't feel right so the choice was easy.
I boarded the connecting bus and continued on with Mike to Bangkok. Another thing I found when traveling through Asia was how serendipitous life could be. Seemed whenever I was moving from that place of intuition and trust everything always fell into place and work out for the better. That night my choice to continue on to Bangkok and then a few days later into the northern mountain country and small community of Pai confirmed this.

Pai not only turned out to be the perfect place for me to rest up but over the years has offered me a quiet comfort and many friendships. It has literally become my second home. When I think about that muddy stretch of highway in Cambodia, sharing stories with Mike from the US, missing my connecting bus to the Island and making the choice to continue through to Bangkok and onward, I'm grateful for the way it turned out.