Thursday 1 February 2024
Traveling Home and Reflections on My Eleventh Winter in Chiang Mai

Traveling Home to the United States

Being my last day in Chiang Mai for this winter, I spent a mellow day on Thursday. First I went to my last yoga class at Wild Rose Yoga with Annie as the teacher. I have known Annie at Wild Rose for at least seven years, and appreciate the way her classes have evolved. She now emphasizes the transition between poses, asking that they be slow, deliberate, and elegant. This pushes the experience of the practice into your head, making it more of a cerebral experience (which is probably what it should be).

After yoga class, I met Rose (the owner of Wild Rose Yoga) at a juice/smoothie place for a juice and conversation. It is always good to talk to Rose – she and her husband John have been very good to me over the years. Needless to say, they are good friends, and I shall miss them until I return to Chiang Mai in November.

After seeing Rose, I returned to The 3-Sis for a late breakfast and to bid the staff there farewell. Then it was back to See You Soon to complete packing and prepare for the journey home. In the afternoon I walked down to bid farewell to Nong and Nat at their crepe cart and also to Aman and Bowan at The Singing Bowl Center.

I went to La Fontana for my last dinner, gazpacho and linguine bolognese. And because it was my last dinner in Chiang Mai for this winter, I splurged with tiramisu for dessert. They make their pasta and sauces fresh every day, so it is very tasty.

Poppy, who owns and manages The 3-Sis, offered to take me to the airport, and she arrived at 8:00 PM. It was nice to talk with her on the way, we have known each other for twelve years. The long journey home has begun.

The first part of the journey is checking in with Korean Air at the Chiang Mai International Airport. This is relatively uneventful, although a fairly slow process. Many more people are traveling than last year. The first flight is from Chiang Mai to Incheon, the airport for Seoul, S. Korea. After check-in, waiting for boarding, boarding, Korean Air flight KE668 left close to the scheduled time of 11:15 PM and the flight is 5 hours on an Airbus A330-300.

I seldom sleep well or even at all during flights, so I watched a few forgettable movies – forgettable, but they kept me occupied. We arrived at Incheon on time at 6:15 AM, Korean time. Since I had more than eight hours until my next flight, I had made a reservation at the Transit Hotel ensuring that I could get some sleep. After going through International Transfer Security, I went to the Terminal 2 transit hotel to check-in. Being in a room, I could sleep and then get a shower before the second, longer flight. The cost for six hours was $55. And I slept almost 5 hours. Got a shower, checked out, and went to find Gate 232 for the flight to Los Angeles.

Incheon is a very large and relatively new airport. It has been rated as the best airport from a passenger perspective by Airports Council International (ACI) from 2005 to 2011, and the best airport in Asia-Pacific for 10 consecutive years from 2006 to 2016 until the ranking series ended in 2017. I agree with those rankings, the airport is easy to negotiate, very clean, and many shops and restaurants are easily accessible. Incheon International was first opened in 2001, a second terminal was added early in 2023. On my way to Bangkok in December 2022, I transferred in Terminal 1, and by the time I returned two months later, Korean Air had been moved to Terminal 2, so I transferred in the newly opened Terminal 2. Korean Air is now completely in Terminal 2.

I made my way to Gate 232 (the same gate as last year for this same flight) for the 11-hour flight from Incheon to Los Angeles. The”LOS” is missing from the signs below because it is a moving display and I snapped the photo just as LOS disappeared.

For the longer flights, Korean Air has continued to use its Airbus A380 aircraft. Many airlines are phasing out the 4-engine aircraft (i.e. Airbus A380, Boeing 747) because of the high operating and maintenance expense, instead using two-engine aircraft, i.e. Boeing 777, Boeing 787, Airbus A330, Airbus A350, etc. But when there is a demand for larger capacity, the A380 works well. And this airplane was full. Korean Air flight KE017 is scheduled for 11 hours exactly. Traveling west, Los Angeles to Incheon is 13-1/2 hours, and a day is lost crossing the international date line. Traveling east, Incheon to Los Angeles, that lost day comes back: we left Incheon at 2:30 PM Friday, February 2, and arrived on time in Los Angeles at 8:30 AM Friday, February 2 – seemingly six hours before we left.

After landing, and going through immigration and customs (a very fast process today), I got the Avis shuttle and picked up a car for the drive home. Having not driven for almost three months, I stayed on surface streets and made my way a few miles to a Starbucks, got a coffee, and then got on the San Diego Freeway (Interstate 405 and Interstate 5) for the 105-mile drive to my house. I arrived home at just about 1:00 PM on Friday, 32 hours after I left See You Soon in Chiang Mai. I am home. What a great trip!

Here I am in my house sitting in front of some of the singing bowls I purchased several years ago from The Singing Bowl Center in Chiang Mai. This is where I sit for my daily meditation.

Reflections on my Winter in Chiang Mai 2023-2024

I have made yoga-focused, month-long or longer visits to Chiang Mai eleven times. I stay at the same places (The 3-Sis, See You Soon), practice yoga at the same place (Wild Rose Yoga) with many of the same teachers (Annie, May, Thom, Jear, Earthy), eat at many of the same places (La Fontana, Street Pizza, La Casita, Blue Diamond, etc.), see many of the same temples and sights, and make the hikes up the mountain to Wat Phalad and beyond. And while there is much similarity, every one of the eleven visits has been distinct and different. I’m reminded of a quote from the Greek philosopher Heraclitus (approximately 500 BC):

No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it’s not the same river and he’s not the same man.

Chiang Mai changes slightly, and I have changed over the years, so I see things differently, with a different perspective, or notice things I did not notice before – everything is in a perpetual state of change making it impossible for any encounter to be exactly repeated. Even with that in mind, this eleventh winter in Chiang Mai stands out as different, and not just because of subtle changes in the city infrastructure or of me and my perspective. I pondered the root of that feeling on the flights home.

During the first nine visits to Thailand, the agreement I had with my manager was that I would work half-time, so I made sure I spent 3 to 4 hours every day (seven days a week) working and checking on the systems I managed. I retired last year before my Thailand trip. In Thailand, I think subconsciously I felt a need to be busy, working on my blog or exploring places to photograph for posts in my blog, to fill the time I would have been working. It was not conscious, but I did keep very busy. This year that subconscious angst was gone, and I was more mellow. In a conversation with John and Rose, after I was home, they said I seemed more “chill.” So it was not just me…I think this trip was good for me.

Every year, when planning my next visit to Chiang Mai, and even on reflection, it seems as if I would have much free time. Sometimes I think, “What am I going to do with all the time?” However, when I am there, I seem to be busy every day and all day: breakfast while updating my journal, yoga practice or workout at the Pump Fitness gym, lunch at a place like Blue Diamond or a snack at Khun Kae’s Juice after yoga, catching up on my blog at a coffee shop or at a co-working place, exploring the city, learning about the history, hiking up the nearby mountain, then dinner, an after-dinner walk, and sometimes more blog catch-up ending the day. The days are full, interesting, uplifting, and energizing – even on this more mellow visit.

The end of my eleven-week stay in Chiang Mai was, as always, quite anti-climatic. After eleven long visits to Chiang Mai, I am comfortable here – comfortable with the food, the people, and the culture. It is all a journey, a journey seeing and learning more about Chiang Mai food, culture, and history; and a daily journey practicing yoga, seeing friends, enjoying sights and meals. I enjoy that journey – there is no particular destination other than just being in Chiang Mai. So I thought of one of my favorite quotes I have posted before, and I’ll post it here again, because it is so apropos, the last sentence in the book “Up Country” by Nelson DeMille:

The journey home is never a direct route; it is, in fact, always circuitous, and somewhere along the way, we discover that the journey is more significant than the destination and that the people we meet along the way will be the traveling companions of our memories forever.

It has been said many times: “The journey is more significant than the destination…” Absolutely! What a great journey I have been on! I am so grateful for the journey, and the people I have met all along the way.

I am looking forward to returning to Chiang Mai in November for a little longer visit.

Next: Returning to Spain to complete the Via de la Plata pilgrimage walk