I left January 6 with a one way ticket to Denpasar that I used air miles  to pay for and which seemed far more expensive than I’d expected. In the past I always found round trip flights with no crazy layovers on carriers like ANA or Cathay or Korean ( I always opt for non-US carriers as I find the service superior! ) This year, I went with a one way in Economy Plus on Eva with a short layover in Taiwan (a fun airport to spend a few hours!) and it came to just under $1500. One way! However, on month two of this unplanned journey, I can say that the freedom from constraints about a return ticket has helped me to really feel grounded here this time. I love not having any set plans, or an end date, or a final destination looming over me dictating my path.

You may be wondering, yes but what do you do there every day? The answer is pretty simple: I do pretty much what I do when I am at home, just that I am in a different country living out of a simple guest house with a lot less in my closet and no need to cook or grocery shop since food is pretty much everywhere at any time of day or night.

Today I am taking care of some emails and work things sitting on the floor of my room sipping hot ginger water. Window is open (no screens but mosquitos only tend to visit at sunset) and it’s in the 90s already at 10am. There is AC but I prefer just the fan on the lowest setting. As much as Thai people love air-conditioning I prefer an open window and a breeze and to feel the slight sweat the heat creates on my skin. Usually after ginger I have a coffee but I ran out so may need to go to a cafe nearby until I can buy more of my favorite Japanese pour over style I found at a grocery shop nearby. Then it usually is pool time ( recently started doing laps when a friend gifted me some goggles!) during the hottest part of the day and then around 2 or 3pm I make my way to the streets and just start wandering in a direction and see where I land, what I discover, who I meet.

This is how my day usually goes in Chicago (minus the pool) as well, taking care of business and then settling into whatever the day offers up, and just embracing whatever the day brings. Some days it is work focused, some days are relaxed and lazy, and others all about just wandering. That third one is why I travel, and the first one allows me to have those days spent aimlessly seeing what I find out on the streets and canals of this city.

A few days ago I went to lunch with a friend at a place just in front of the Bang Kwang Prison, Cook Coff cafe ( cook means prison in Thai) where inmates do vocational training while serving their sentences. It is right on the river and they have a delicious menu prepared and served by the inmates. While there we met an older Thai man eating at a nearby table who had studied in Kentucky in the 70s and invited us to join him. After lunch we ended up going for a car ride to a nearby island where we could walk around and visit a temple. He just wanted to show us a few places we may not have visited and because we went along for the ride, literally, we had an unexpected adventure and made a local friend who was really happy to get to practice English and reminisce about his time in the US all those years ago.

Slow travel means you may not have plans to see every single sight each day of your trip, but the moments that often happen when you open your schedule, and your heart, can be far greater memories in the long run.

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This man we met had lived in Kentucky in the 70s as a student and was happy to meet and share stories. He gave me the CD of the music he had playing in his car ( an old Toyota with a CD player!) Memory for a lifetime…