Noun: the gift of finding valuable or agreeable things not looked for.
More than the places I have been to on this trip, which have been beautiful indeed, it has been the people I have met there that have left me in a perpetual state of “how?!”
How is it possible that I shared breakfast with an Indian girl in Krabi that told me she did in fact know the 16,000 person strong village I come from in NZ as she had studies thirty minutes away from there for the past three years?
How did I end up in a restaurant in Silom after work on a Thursday night with three french friends we had met the weekend prior on their last night in Thailand before flying out? How did we overcome the language barrier with one of them?
(The answer to the latter was acknowledging that he was a master’s student in philosophy, understanding that economic and political theories transcend such obstacles, and drawing such graphs on our notes app while a live rendition of at my worst by pink sweats played behind us…)
How did a four hour train ride back to Bangkok from Khao Yai national park feel like thirty minutes, while sitting next to Ed, an American Retiree backpacking through Europe, inspired by SE Asia through his son and son’s wife who set up a school in Cambodia? How is it real that people did in fact drink hydroxychloroquine when Trump jokingly suggested it, but refused the vaccine, and they happened to Ed’s friends? (Ed, on the other hand, supports AOC and is a strong believe in climate action)
How did the guardsman’s smile start to make my day every work morning as we shared the biggest smile while he saluted and I demonstrated the wai (Thai greeting – small bow with palms brought together).
How did I meet the brand manager of Fevicol (household indian business name) in the moment that he arrived and that I was leaving for the airport, at the hostel on a weekend trip?
How did the 10 people on the trip that I lived, travelled and worked with for two months despite having never met them before it, create some of the happiest, most hilarious stories that I will carry for the rest of my life (If I write them down – memory is fallible whoops!)?
How is Bangkok now starting to feel like home?
Tune in for the next chapter, where the preposition of choice is why….
Teaser: Why do we have to go back home soon? :’(