I know that it has been a few months since I have posted anything but here goes another post. Towards the middle of February I met a girl in Chiang Mai. She had just moved there to try and find some work. A little back story on her is that she owns a salon in her village. To my understanding she had a boyfriend that would kind of supplement her income or as many would call it sponsor her. Well something happened not sure what but they are not together anymore. Anyways her salon does pretty good except it doesn't quite help her pay for the car she is buying. So she went to Chiang Mai to find a job to help supplement her income but in doing so she cut her salon income. Even if she got 2 jobs in Chiang Mai she would not be able to cover the costs of everything including the costs of living in Chiang Mai with the salary that Thai's get paid. Now I am not looking to be her sponsor in any way but she decided against looking for a job in Chiang Mai until after this wedding she is doing in the middle of March. She asked if I would like to come with her to her home and see how what things are like there. So on the 28th of February I was in the passenger seat of a little Toyota sedan heading to her village. By the time we get there it is late at night, some time just after midnight. I get out of the car and stretch my legs a bit and look at her house. It is not a typical Thai style house by any means. Her house was fairly modern looking for Thailand. It was a 2-bedroom house with a nice living room a kitchen, 1 bathroom, and some small hall/room tying them all together. It was big enough you could make it like a small office space if needed. Attached to the side of the house was her salon, it is fully equipped to do everything one could imagine that could be done in a salon. Some pictures of the house here.
The following pictures are of the land and rice paddies around her house and the mountain behind it.
Being out in the countryside with her was very nice and relaxing to a point. It was very quiet there which was nice. The neighbors though were of the nosey type. They would always come over to "talk", but I was informed that they were there to look at me and try to get some gossip. Which I can understand, I am from a small town myself back home and everyone there wanted to know what everyone else was doing. One reason why I left the small town. So with that going on I wasn't feeling like this lifestyle was for me. Another thing is that no one spoke English so I was left to talk with only one person, her. Her English wasn't the best either. Nothing against her, she is one of the sweetest girls one could meet.
After being in this tiny village for a week I had reached a conclusion that I could not do this lifestyle. I couldn't speak with anyone and if I wanted to go anywhere I was solely reliant on her to take me. Not that I had any place to go but I would like a snickers and coke from the good ole seven eleven. Yet I couldn't walk there as it was too far away. So I just sat around in the living room for 15 days watching tv shows in Thai and whatever shows I had downloaded to my laptop before I got there. My internet wasn't that great either as I had to tether my phone to get online. I would try to do the digital nomad thing but it was a drag with the slow internet speeds. So I was really bored and got nothing done for a half a month.
I had figured before I even went that it wouldn't be the best of time for me but I said to myself how else would I know if I never tried it out to see what it was like. So I went to the village. Now I know what it is like and I have some recommendations for you if you decide to go. Make sure you bring something to do or have a hobby. Make sure you can speak Thai and that you have a drivers license for at least a motorbike so you are not dependent on anyone to keep from being bored. If you can do at a minimum those things you might have a really good time there. I really enjoyed walking out in the morning and the air had a crispness to it and I could look across the road into the field and see the water buffalo grazing away at the green grass and off in the distance once I shaded my eyes from the rising sun I could see some farmers tending their herd of cattle. It was a really nice place to go and check out to see how I would like it but in the end the country lifestyle is not for me. I like my 24 hour cities. Thanks for reading and I hope to have more for you soon. I might even get into making videos again.