I just watched 2 short videos about albino crocodiles. Creatures that probably should not exists if not for the creation of new habitats by Man.
In August of 2009, I left the United States for a new habitat; different and strange, South Korea was so foreign to me. But now I find myself somehow transported all these years later to the desert of Saudi Arabia. In 8 days, from now my contract in this habit will end. Crossroads. I am not the same creature ho left the USA so many years ago and thus I don't really know where I fit in.
HOME - what is this word and where is this place? As I prepare to change habitats again, I find myself lost and certainly alone. Will I meet other albino crocodiles who exists outside of place and time? Will I stick out like a giant black and white panda walking down Central Ave? Or will I make may way to some other local. A secret place. Where everyone there understands my language?
;
She was the first digital nomad I met. Her smile was 3 parts charm and 1 part sexy. Her brain was 100 percent turned on and tuned in to the things that matter in life. We never got the chance to be close close friends, yet we have stayed connected over the years. We sort of individually inspire each other to keep pushing forward and be greater than being comfortable allows a person.
So we live in the place where growth and change are as interchangeable as air and breath. She will always be The birdy soaring to new heights and I will be the shadow. Also soaring but less noticed and much closer to the ground.
Mostly because grass is not exactly native to the desert. I have been doing some soul searching lately and that is probably going to be an on going project. One thing I have learned is that there are a few people in this world who are landmarks. People who are at the right place at the right time and guide you into who you become. I have a friend like this. I once told her that "When I think about you, I think about writing a book about making all the wrong choices, going on adventures, and ending up with a person who accepts your flaws. I want you to be my ending." No matter how your day started, I hope you finish it well and I hope you find the right landmarks to build a wonderful life. Keep living in the moment. Marcus
I am not a noob when it comes to travel, but I still make mistakes. I was lucky enough to meet up with an old friend Stacy, during my Ramadan break from teaching English in Saudi Arabia. We met in Bangkok to start an 11 day adventure that we had been loosely planning for some time via chats on Facebook since she lives in South Korea and I toil away my days in the 120F or 50C heat of Saudi Arabia.
Having lived in Bangkok for 6 month and teaching out in the semi suburbs just past Don Meung Airport, I consider Bangkok one of my second homes. I love the place. The grit. The grime. The greenery. The people. The language, and of course the food. But today I am not going to talk much about food. I have a story to tell you.
Our plan, part something:Go from Bangkok to Chiang Mai via train.
Stacy had some international commitments and needed to be in a place with reliable wifi for a Skype call at 11 pm. Most people who make this trip take the night train as the trip takes about 11 hours and the night train is quite comfortable. But this was not an option for us because the train does not have wifi and tethering with a mobile hotspot doesn't work so well on a moving train in rural northern Thailand.
We decided to take the day train. By the way, anything you ever want to know about train travel in Thailand, check out The Man in Seat Sixty-One. Our train was scheduled to leave from Bangkok Hualamphong station at 8:30 am. We were staying not too far from the train station via taxi and were up and ready to go by 7 am. Easy peasy.
Note to self and others: I almost never get in a taxi that is waiting outside of a hotel or restaurant, bar, etc in Bangkok. These drivers stand around all day waiting for some unsuspecting tourist (falang) as the Thais say, to jump in the back seat and be methodically taken for a ride. But we were not going far and we had plenty of time. I thought there was no way this guy would try to get over on us.........
I am not fluent in Thai. For that matter, sometimes I can't get my words out in English and I am an English teacher. That being said, I told the taxi driver where we were going and from the moment he started driving, I knew he was going the wrong way. Maybe he knows some short cut and will save us some time or he is trying to get a few extra baht in fare. At 34 baht for each USA, I was not worried about it.
Before long, however, he managed to find the only traffic jam in Bangkok at 7 am on this side of town. Suddenly our "we have enough time to catch our train" became an uncertainty.
I am going to skip ahead a bit to the point where we realized that we were not going to make it to the train station in this taxi. We had him uturn, and drop us off at the closest MRT stop. We were 5 stops away from the train station and we had 10 minutes until departure. The part of me that does not know how to stay calm wanted to scream FUCK!
We arrive at the station at 8:31 and there is a chance that train 7 is still there. Thais are generally not known for promptness like the trains in Japan. An official looking woman sees us looking for our train and asks to see our ticket (she probably didn't actually work for the train station).
You train leave 5 minutes ago. Here, take moto taxi to next station and catch train! She led us out of the train station to 2 motorbike taxis that just happened to be ready to speed us through morning traffic to the next train station to catch our train. Bag in tow, helmets half on, and hanging on for dear life, we raced through the streets of Bangkok to the next train station.
About this time I started thinking that our train probably was still at the station and this was some sort of scam. Before long, I spotted train 7 behind us and the next train station ahead of us. Both motorbike drivers slowed down and decided this was the time to discuss how much we should pay them for helping us catch our train.
11 hour day train to Chiang Mai from Bangkok =641 Thai Baht each
These guys asked us for 1000 or 600 baht each for helping us catch the train. And of course we are still on the back of the motorbikes and they have slowed to a crawl. If we don't negotiate soon, our train would reach the next station and pass us.
There is no way in Hell I was going to pay more for a 10 minute death ride through Bangkok traffic than I paid for the actual 11 hour train ticket! We argued about price in Thai for a bit and finally agreed to give them about $10 usd each (300 Thai Baht). We are not talking about being scammed out of a large amount of money by American standards, but given the price of the train ticket and our need to be on that specific train, we between a rock and a hard place.
Once we gave them their 300 baht and got on our train, we had time to take a deep breath and think about all that had happened.
Did the taxi driver get stuck in traffic on purpose?
Was the woman at the train station a friend of his?
Were the moto guys in on the scam?
We will never know.
That's enough for now. I need to eat lunch and go for a swim. Soon I will write about the actual train ride. It was a very different kind of adventure and one I won't soon forget.
Over the next couple of weeks, I have a lot to write about. I just took an amazing 5 week trip around SE Asia and spent time traveling with a couple of good friends at different parts of my trip. But I will regail you with stories from those adventures in the coming weeks.
Today, I had a long chat with my favorite digital nomad, Desiree Kane, and she share a an article she wrote about life as a digital nomad. Her worlds cut right to the bone of some of what I have been feeling lately. WayfaringTechNomad
My response to her article is listed below.
Thank you for sharing this with me and everyone else who lives this life and knows these emotions. I left the USA in 2009 with no real plan of becoming a nomad. It just sort of happened piece by piece and momemt by moment. Home started to become as mythical as Nirvana and Utopia or Zeus and Thor. I still have friends in a place that I often refer to as home, but having spent exactly 9 months there since 2009, I am not sure what that means anymore. Home. I don't love my friends any less and I couldn't possibly miss them any more, but the road is my drug of choice and I am an addict.
I don't mean to make a life of travel sound morbid and depressing, although there are some days when I just need a hug from an old friend. What I mean to say is that once you start learning to exist anywhere, you exist everywhere. My mind is my personal cloud storage and every expat bar, mom and pop Vietnamese noodle shop, Thai moo ping street food vendor, turbo prop plane ride from Chiang Mai to Luang Prabang are my analog interfaces to my digital nomadic life.
Happy is how other people see me and often how I feel. But when I am not happy, I am lonely and lost. Waiting for that next inspiration to send me spiraling towards some unknown destination and adventure. I don't know if I will ever know a HOME again, but it's nice to know that I am not really alone.
Over the course of my life I have often felt slightly removed. Slightly removed from people. Slightly removed from places. Slightly removed from things. Slightly removed from the hear and now.
It has been a life long struggle to remain present and find connection. This may come as a surprise in that I have many wonderful friends and family who mean the world to me. But none-the-less, I am often a specator in my own life. That is until recently.
For what may be the first time in MY ADULT LIFE, I have felt connected to something larger and more meaningful than my next sensory experience. And I own it all to the various volunteers who came together to make Barack Obama our president. Of course his words and demenor are the unifying force, but it is the people. The People. The people who have made me feel alive.
My friend Shannon took a series of photos that have captured the essence of what I have been feeling yet not able to put into words.
A collective moment.
And while I still struggle to put into words what the last one and a half years have meant to me, I know that I am no longer a spectator. I am a participant.
So I ask: Can I get a witness? I can no longer watch from the sidelines. The game is in play and I am on the field.
