Bangkok! I've heard a lot of crazy things about this city and I am excited to spend a day or two here but right now I am just staying at the airport for a 7 hour layover until I board my last flight to Koh Samui (island where yoga studio is). It is now 4am and I have two hours left until my flight. I thought this was going to be a very long and boring layover but it's been quite a lovely experience so far and the time has passed by very quickly. Once I am finish writing this blog post I will make my way to check in and should be taking off in no time. It is only a 1 hour flight to Koh Samui where I am supposed to be picked up and taken to the yoga studio. Seeing as all my past two flights have been pretty long I am looking forward to this quick flight and just being able to stay in one place and chill for a while. I am not very tired at this point and wonder what the rest of my day will be like once I arrive. I have managed to get way more sleep then I ever thought I would along the way. My flight from Tokyo to Bangkok was about 7 hours and I think I was asleep for 4 of it plus the few hours of sleep I got off and on from Chicago to Tokyo. I don't know if I should be more tired or if my body is just excited and thrown off because of all the time changes and traveling I've been doing. I thought I was going to spend most of this layover sleeping but instead I have managed to eat a midnight meal (my meal periods have been so f***ed up and feel like I've eaten about 4 meals a day, but ive only had 3 proper meals and a couple of bites of two airplane meals), do some people watching,
browse some shops, bought and read a bit of a book and talked to my mom and a couple friends from home via iMessage. Bangkok has been the first location where I have really noticed all the 20-something year old backpackers. They are everywhere; sleeping in hidden corners behind the ATM machines, laying across the benches holding their packs with dear life while trying to get a few minutes of shut eye, walking through the halls and taking everything in. I'm getting excited to be off on my own and living the life of a backpacker. I watched a really cool documentary before I left about the backpacking culture called A Map for Saturday I believe, or something along those lines and now that I am here I can start to relate to what I saw and cannot wait to dive right in. First I need to get through 30 days of intensive yoga training and hopefully tone-up my bod before hitting all the beautiful beaches in Southern Thailand. The book I purchased today is actually about Buddism and the concepts of karma and cause and effect. As I began reading it, I started thinking about all the effects that will come from this one decision to go to Thailand and do my teacher training and travel around Southeast Asia. I am so excited for this next chapter of my life and to learn so many new things and just take in all the culture and I am so thankful that I am healthy and Canadian and able to do such things. This is going to be amazing and I've really been working on being positive and believing in karma and cause and effect and I know that good things are coming my way. Thank you all for taking the time to read this blog and share this journey with me. I think the worst part about traveling alone is not being able to share these experiences with someone close to me. I know I will meet loads of people along the way and I'm sure I will make some great friendships but it's almost just temporary friendships filling in the gap as you move from place to place. That documentary talked a lot about that and how you are always meeting people, building friendships in a day or two and then having to say goodbye and most of the people you meet you will most likely never see again. I will have all these memories but no one to really look back on them with. But at the same time, I can look at it as a positive thing as these memories will be my own and only I will truly know what I've seen, felt and experienced along the way which can be quite intimate and I think it will help play a huge part in figuring out who I really am and being the person that I want to be. Every decision I make will be my own and every action I make will have an effect which is exactly what this karma book is explaining and I am able to relate to it in many ways right now. Definitely gonna be a good read on this crazy life experience.
Time to check in and catch my last flight. Hopefully I will have wifi once I get to the studio and can upload these past few posts about my journey to Thailand. Take care and don't worry about me (mom, dad and gramma especially) I have made it this far safe and sound, everything will be fine. Keep your minds positive for me and I will do the same for all you back home and for myself as well. I am being smart and have done a lot of research and am comfortable doing this on my own which I think is important in order to keep yourself out of trouble and danger. My confidence is hiding my fear so I am not an easy target.
I haven't even started my yoga teacher training and I can feel myself getting more spiritual. Hope I'm not making any of you sick with disgust about all my positive banter and spiritual bs, but if you know me well you know it's what I'm all about and this journey is just going to enhance it. I say all this now but I'm sure I will have some rough times and will have to look back on this post to remind myself of everything I've been preaching! Haha! We have good days and we have bad days, today has been a good one :)