Introduction

I'm currently travelling across a few countries in South East Asia - Thailand, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam. With only time, limited money and zero plans made, let's see where this adventure takes me! In my previous post, I talked about my renting a scooter for the first time and riding up and down mountains and temples the whole day spontaneously.

I plan to write about the majority of my activities, experiences and thoughts throughout this trip not just for my future self but for anyone else interested as well.

These 2 days, we went to visit a little town 3 hours outside of Chiangmai called Pai. It was a super chill and relaxed place. I didn't enjoy it at first but it grew on me and I fell in love with it by the end of the night

View of Pai from the White Buddha Temple

In a Town Called Pai

The day started early at 7am to get some work done and then to get on the mini van up to Pai. The 3 hour van ride was pretty miserable with roads being windier than going up to Cameron Highlands in Malaysia. When we got to the small town, it wasn't what I expected at all.

I expected a much more rural village with open rice fields as far as the eyes can see but ended up in a dusty little town. Maybe it was the long ride in the early morning and the constant drizzling that made me cranky. We walked around town until we found a hostel to stay in - Happy Backpackers Hostel.

As soon as we checked in, we went to work throughout the afternoon and only planned to get some sightseeing done in the evening. So, let's skip the work part.

An hour before sunset, we were determined to walk up to the White Buddha temple up in the mountains. For some reason, Thai temples REALLY REALLY love their stairs.

You can see that small White Buddha statue up in the mountains in the top right

We got a little lost but we reached there were these long set of stairs that we had to climb -ugh

But we finally made it!

And the view was totally worth the climb

We spent the next day mainly working, but we rented a bike and did some exploration in a different mountain in the afternoon as well. That's the best thing about Pai - just rent a bike and go in any direction and it's going to be an adventure.

In the 2 hours we were on our bike, we found a waterfall and also a massive split in the ground that an Earthquake caused a few years ago.

Such a Magical Place

This. This was the main highlight of Pai. We heard about it from our friends and we knew we just had to try it. After a full day of hiking and climbing and being tired. We headed to a quaint little bar in the middle of the rice fields that had a funky looking bar, wooden shacks with mattresses surrounded by colorful lights playing some trippy music.

We took a bit of time to get into the right mood. Then, we ordered our magic mushroom shake.

It took awhile to kick-in and I honestly thought we were scammed. But Chungsoon asked me to close my eyes and BOOM, I was transported into a different world. Each person goes through a different experience, that's why the setting the right mindset before going into it is so important.

For me, I wanted to feel confident and happy. I wanted to stop holding myself back with that logical voice at the back of my head. I wanted to appreciate life.

With my eyes closed, I saw myself floating through space with funky visuals all around me not unlike the ones shown in Dr.Strange. I was floating through the universe and I could see the trails of the planets left behind them. Each time I thought I've seen the massiveness of this one universe, I suddenly become a higher being with the universe within the palm of my hand and again that higher being self is just a small speck in a much larger universe.

Source

The universe kept wrapping around itself with me reaching a higher level of consciousness each time. I even went the opposite direction and became bacteria crawling around in the microscopic world.

All that only happened within 30 minutes of getting high.

After that, we decided to walk around town. Each scene, each view I had was an experience on its own that I wanted to just get lost in. For the first time in my life, I understood why painters spend years painting a scenery or why musicians try to recreate an emotion through music. The things I saw and experience made me feel like so welcomed and like it just makes so much sense like this is how the world was supposed to be.

The hallucinations didn't stop even with my eyes open. I could see things around the peripherals of my vision. Beings who were always there and were giving me a cheeky wink for finally knowing of their existence.

When we finally reached our hostel, we meditated in the living space for a bit. This was where the consciousness-changing experience happened.

What I Learned

1. There is so much beauty in life that we take for granted. That simple small town suddenly became a beautiful space with many interesting things in every corner. I wokeup the next day and really appreciated every thing I saw. I hope I take this viewpoint into every place I go.
2. I have more control of my body than I give myself credit for. For the longest time, I've not been able to sleep on my back because I get aches. But I told myself that the pain doesn't exist and now it's gone! Even on the 2nd night when I wasn't high anymore.
3. Life and consciousness is too big and infinite to sweat and worry about the small stuff. Just be happy and go through life care-free.

I can't even begin to describe the whole experience. Everything I wrote above just feels like a speck in everything I experienced. I even imagine my body dissolving leaving only the skeleton and my heart. And I was looking at my body from a 3rd person view being able to reconstitute my body however I want. Now, I feel like a lot of mental blocks that were preventing me from living the life I wanted has been lifted and I feel confident I can go through life living the life I want now!

Note:I'm not recommending or pushing drugs. Just describing the experience I went through.