Hey y’all,
Traveling is bringing out the lone wolf in me.
I’m getting into the groove of that dance of solitude and connection. Being with myself and crossing paths with other travelers - usually solo female travelers – where we come together for a brief friendship of time spent in a place that’s not our home.
I’ve been very lucky with the people I’ve met. So much that I found myself craving alone time.
Anyway, when I was in Chiang Rai I spent practically all my time alone, with only the briefest of exchanges since I got here. And I’m good with it.
Of course, it helped that I knew my solitude came with an expiration date because I had a workshop right afterwards. Shared experience is always fodder for meeting and bonding with people.
The last few days I was in Chiang Mai, I buddied around at night with Nadia, who I met the day I checked out of my Thailand base, Hollanda Montri Guesthouse, run by Kiwi Dean and the Widow Su.
Nadia was the one who stared a conversation with me because I was tossing a 5 baht coin in my chronic game of yes or no answers to be found in heads or tails.
“Heads or tails? Which one do you want?”
“Depends on the question I’m asking.”
That’s how the convo started between us.
Nadia’s another seasoned traveler like Kip. Before she married a couple of years ago, she carved out 6 months a year for travel.
Nadia is what I’d call a soft extrovert. She wasn’t boisterous or overpowering, but she definitely knew very well how to meet people easily and connect.
When she met me for dinner in the old city, she had no problem asking the tattooed French guy if we could join him on a bamboo platform where another guy was snoozing in the hammock.
The Frenchman had lived in Thailand for years. Nadia asked him if he’d ever been a scuba dive instructor, which he said he had.
“Whenever I meet a Frenchman with tattoos, it seems they are always dive instructors.”
When the guy in the hammock woke up, she asked him what he’d been dreaming about.
He hadn’t been dreaming at all. He had been sleeping off a hangover.
I was ready for some alone time, or it may have even been her jetlag, but I found Nadia draining when I first met her.
But I squashed it down because she was company before I went to Chiang Rai, and who knows when I’d have a travel buddy to hang out with again?
Nadia was a very lovely woman. She was in Chiang Mai for a Thai massage course and to do her own thing, while her husband goes snowboarding in the Alps. They live in Holland.
Of course, Nadia was very interesting. I learned about a place I really want to go to from her.
“Get there before it’s discovered and becomes expensive,” she said. “It will happen because it is literally an oasis. My husband and I were there for our honeymoon 2 years ago, and it was magical.”
I just might go there next fall. And in the interests of keeping the secret a little longer, I’m not going to say where it is.
I saw Nadia every night from the time I met her until my last night in Chiang Mai when I circled the moat going around the old city of Chiang Mai.
It was so good to do that alone, even the tight spots of navigating near the old wall with vehicles coming at me. I felt light and free walking those 7+ kilometres.
I think Nadia was on the same page. She stayed at the guesthouse on the river and probably got her conversation needs met with Dean.
It’s such a gift to meet unusual, independent people while traveling.
As Natasha had said, traveling takes out a lot of stuff and distills the essence of who a person is. Then on top of that, solo female travelers crossing paths with other solo female travelers is its own magic.
It’s been a relief, this experience of connecting with kindred spirits.
But at the same time, there’s a compromise to spending time with another. Nadia had a very different rhythm than I, and sometimes it tested my patience to alter my pace to meet hers, and I’m not free to go where my feet lead me.
In some ways, that’s a blessing because I do things I wouldn’t have due to another’s influence. In other ways, I was kind of hungry for it – to simply do my own thing when I wanted as I wanted.
Those few days in Chiang Rai were pretty sweet. I got a good recharge before being around others again.
Traveling is getting me back in touch with my inner lone wolf. I met remarkable women in that workshop and made some beautiful new friends. Yet there were also plenty of times when I needed to go be by myself for a while. Usually to write, but often times simply just to be.
It’s a dance of solitude and connection, the alone time of being with one’s self and connecting with other beings for a brief friendship of two ships passing in the night, the horn sounding in the air as we all go our separate ways.
Most of these women I’ll probably never see again.
Peace,
Mana
