Day 4

Woke up early and walked to the Pharmacy Gardens and saw a few westerners enjoying themselves, one even said good morning to me, which made me smile. My energy levels were higher than normal, which is odd for being so early in the fitness cycle. I breezed through 5 sets of muscle exercises and on the walk back to the condo stopped at a street-side food stall and bought meat on a stick along with a noodle curry dish which was served in a plastic bag, costing $1. 

During my 3 months in Chiang Mai I did not eat food from street stalls, sticking to Tops Grocery and a few cafes, mainly because I was vegetarian. My culinary timidity worked out fine, though, because I did not experience any stomach distress. Because I am no longer a vegetarian I am being more bold with my food choices and I won’t be surprised if I am eventually punished for it.

In the afternoon I worked on a daily expense budget, then took a long nap. When the sun set I walked over to Central Mall and bought a dinner from the night market. Total cost was $4, which included Passion Fruit juice and a Coke. 

Tomorrow is a running day, hoping for 1 or 2 miles followed by exercises.

Day 3

Settling in – setting up the chess board on the quirky wood-carved table with a hole in the middle of it; setting up a daily budget sheet; putting things in their natural places.

After the delicious 12 hour sleep I knew it was time to get some exercise - use it or lose it, right? - and so I walked over to the Princess Mothers Health Garden, which was one of my favorite places to visit in 2012. I noticed a few changes on my walk over, one of the best parts of the walk had been altered, instead of an unusual covered walkway which leads into the park, a parking lot and new condo building had been erected, and while the building sure looks nice, I miss the walkway. The park itself appears to have not changed much, although I noticed that I had perhaps started a trend by mentioning this place in my 2012 blog, because many westerners were there running and walking, whereas in 2012 I found I was one of a few westerners who visited the place. Another, more important, change is that the pipes (supporting the roof of a small pagoda) which I had used for pull-ups have become rusted and are eroding into nothingness, so I had to use the most solid looking pipe and take my chances. I ran only 1 mile today, but I hope to slowly increase the distance so that before I leave I will be able to run up the Monk’s Trail on Doi Suthep and reach the famous temple.

After exercising I decided my first meal in Chiang Mai should be from the Free Bird Cafe, which was my favorite place to hang out in 2012. I noticed that it had, again, moved to a new location, which fortunately was only 1 mile from my condo. I walked the busy streets and arrived at a pleasant place which had outdoor seating in a quiet garden. I ordered a curry dish, samosas, and a passion fruit smoothie, which were all excellently prepared and presented. While eating I worked on my laptop, sending emails to friends and working on my journal. I have not done much writing since 2015 and getting back into the habit is making me feel creative and satisfied. With each passing entry I become more engrossed in the process and am always curious how things will turn out. I also have not taken many photos lately, so carrying a camera around also feels good. I made photos of the food but being out of the camera habit, I accidentally left the memory card in the condo, so the pictures were not saved.

After the meal I took a nap, and in the late afternoon I agreed to extend my stay in the condo building until January 16, although I will be moving a few rooms down the hall on December 26. As for the price of the unit, I am embarrassed to admit that I am paying a high premium for the location and comfort of the room. Although I live like a monk most days, I could have easily settled for another place to live and saved 40-60% on rent, but because I have been planning and budgeting for this journey the past 2 years, and gave myself a high threshold for rent cost, I see no problem paying the high premium since it is still within budget. So I will be living in Chiang Mai until January 16^th, and after that I have to decide where to go. I am thinking of going to Bangkok for 9 or 10 days, to live near Lumpini Park. When my visa expires on January 26 I am not planning to extend it so I will need to leave Thailand and go to another country – India, Indonesia, Vietnam are possibilities.

When the sun set I decided to head over to Central Mall and use an ATM to get the money I will need to pay off the rest of my condo stay. When I arrived I saw the night market going and was surprised to find that it had changed from a clothing and goods market and was now a tasty food market – amazing looking food, even Thai-style lasagna, and it was too bad that I had already eaten for the day, but made a note to visit soon and have a cheap and satisfying evening meal on the steps of the mall. 

Condo View

Day 2

Made it to the airport for the 2^nd time in two days and the flight went off with only a 90 minute delay. I was fortunate to have the seat next to me empty, so it made sleeping possible, along with creative stretching postures for the legs. The flight lasted 15 hours and 30 minutes, and we touched down in Taipei. Found out that instead of flying direct to Chiang Mai, I had to first fly to Bangkok, which was going to be a 3 hour and 30 minute flight. When I am forced to sit for more than 6 hours without much of a break my stomach starts to feel tight and uncomfortable, so I was relieved to have made the first long segment of the flight without much discomfort. However, when the Bangkok flight started my stomach got tight and I dreaded the next 3 hours. I decided to focus my mind on prayer instead of pain, and so began a mantra of 2 prayers, and miraculously within 15 minutes my stomach pain disappeared and did not return. On the Bangkok flight I noticed a number of people seated next to me from the Chicago/Taiwan flight, mostly younger people who looked to be on travel adventures.

Upon arrival in Bangkok I had flashbacks to my 2012 visit where I landed at 1:00am and could not figure out how to properly fill in the arrival/departure card needed for immigration, but this time I looked the card over carefully and breezed through immigration. One bit of luck about having to transfer to the Chiang Mai flight is that I got to bypass the long lines at the normal immigration check point and instead got my visa stamped at the empty transfer desk. Once my visa was approved I was told to go to gate A5, and noticed the same faces which had been following me since Chicago. A few of us got to A5 and noticed the area was empty. A bearded hipster who had been continually one step ahead of me since the long lines in Chicago was again just ahead of me and I asked him if he was going to Chiang Mai, and if so, were we in the right place. He seemed a bit frazzled and said we had less than 5 minutes to catch our flight and there was no plane at the gate, so we had to be in the wrong place. He and his girlfriend started to walk back towards immigration, and I followed, realizing that it may still be a long ways to Chiang Mai if we missed the flight. His girlfriend then told us to head back to A5, because there was a change in time zones from Taipei and we had an hour before the plane was to leave, so we headed back to A5 and within 30 minutes the gang from Chicago was hanging around, brushing teeth in a water fountain, reading books, and taking cell phone selfies. I was surprised that these people were not heading into Bangkok, but instead heading north with me to Chiang Mai. When we were seated on the plane I was sitting next to a woman in her 20’s who I had seen in Chicago and I congratulated her for making it through the ordeal we had been through. She (Morgan) laughed and we ended up having a nice conversation to make the 1 hour flight seem shorter.

Arriving in Chiang Mai I watched Morgan move away through the dusty airport corridor, realizing I would not see her again, along with the rest of the Chicago explorers. We were now following our own paths to who knows where. I was supposed to be picked up by my AirBnB hosts but I could not get an open internet connection, and not carrying a phone with me, I decided to try to find transport into town. I walked out into the Chiang Mai morning, the taxi stand crowded, and I was hit with the unique smell which I had forgotten about – a mix of food, sewage, exotic trees, and a hot and smutty smog, which triggered forlorn memories of my misadventures in 2012. I recalled a passage from a novel about Bombay, the author having fallen in love with the city because of the way it smelled, and it seemed to me that the same had happened to me, one of the reasons I loved this Thai place was because of its distinctive odor. As I wandered about aimlessly a tuk tuk appeared next to me, and the driver locked eyes with me and told me what I needed to hear - “tuk tuk ride into town!” So I hopped in and just like the first time, I greeted the Chiang Mai streets from an open door tuk tuk, which made me smile naturally as the morning heat beat down heavily on my weariness.

I was dropped off at Central Mall and I wandered two blocks to the condo building where I was to be staying for the next month. Not having a phone, I had to decide how to signal to the owners, who lived in the building, that I was waiting for them in the lobby. I saw a guard, but talking to him produced nothing significant because he did not understand English, and so I took a seat at a nearby table and tried to calm my thoughts which were tired and overburdened with new stimuli. I thought of chess and I saw that I was in one of those positions which could be called a “critical moment”, and one thing I have learned is that one has to remain focused and under control if one wants to get out of that moment unscathed. I saw an older white fellow amble by and I asked him for help. He told me the front desk receptionist would be able to help and I thanked him and spontaneously thought of offering her 20 baht if she would call the number of my host for me. That idea was a saving one, because a few minutes later I was settling into bed in my new home, dropping into a deep 12 hour sleep, well earned. 

 Learning From Chess, Learning From Life

Day 1 - Chiang Mai

Day 1

If adventure is the thing to be desired during travel, then day 1 of my journey can be considered a success. When I left the condo at 8:30pm, I was 95% certain that I would not be stepping foot into it for the next 16 weeks, but things began to quickly escalate into statistical oddities. I planned to walk to the blue line station and take the train to O’hare airport, and as I stepped outside to begin the 1 mile walk I was pelted with a snow/rain mix, and within a ¼ mile my pants, jacket, and shoes were soaked. I made it to the station intact, but very wet and cold. After a 40 minute train ride I arrived at O’Hare and met up with a friend who was there to see me off. We took the shuttle train to the international terminal and found that the check-in line for my flight was long and slow. A large percentage of the people in line were Asian, and most of them had ridiculously large packages and crates which they were checking into cargo. After 90 minutes I was able to get my boarding pass and after saying goodbye to my friend I headed to security and dreaded the pat down procedure, but it went more easily than I had expected, no power-tripping TSA agents to make things difficult. When I reached the M7 departure gate I gazed out the window and saw that a full-power snowstorm was covering the area, swirling and covering the plane with ice, the tarmac heavy in slush and snow. 

I guessed that the flight would soon be canceled but after standing around for 2 hours they began passenger boarding. I took my seat, 66C, next to an elderly Asian couple who spoke no English. I looked at my watch and noted that the plane, supposed to depart at 12:20am, was still on the ground at 2:00am. For the next 4 hours I sat in my seat gazing at a snow covered port hole and trying to remain comfortable. At 6:00am the passengers were given the message to de-board due to the flight finally being terminated. I was happy about this because I did not care to think about flying for 16 hours after sitting in a grounded airplane for 4 hours. I then stood in another line, this time for 1 hour, to let the ticket agent know that I would be returning to my home and did not need a courtesy hotel room. I took the blue line train back to downtown Chicago, falling asleep along the way. When I got off the train at Lake street I found the sidewalks ice and slush covered, and the temperature having dropped 25 degrees from the previous day. Just before reaching State street I slipped on the ice and fell on my ass, my backpack helping to prevent a full backside immersion. The person behind me stopped to help me up, and with a wet backside I walked a further ½ mile to the condo. I was feeling quite out of it when I got into bed, and slept for the next 4 hours, got up to eat lunch, then slept for another 3 hours. I then took a shower, repacked, and repeated the process to return to the airport, again 95% certain that I would not be sleeping in my condo bed for the next 16 weeks.

Letter to Kait, Part II

...

After my first year in Chicago I moved into a 3rd floor flat which had a photographic darkroom in the basement. I lived there for 3 years, and worked hard at art and making photos. After getting married I left Chicago and moved downstate and bought a house and built a darkroom in the basement. For the next 15 years I worked hard at art and making photos. During that time I finished the 3 volumes of the van Gogh letters, which took me approximately 1 year per volume, so that by the end of the 3rd volume 3 years had passed and I found I had changed so much that I needed to revisit the letters from the beginning, so I reread them a second time. After making it through the 2nd time, another 3 years having passed, I decided I had changed so much, I had to go back and reread the letters a third time. When I finished reading them a decade had passed since I had come across that dusty volume II sitting on the library shelf, and I realized that my path in life had been largely determined by the pure fate and chance of having decided to check the book out and begin reading 1 letter per night.

Some of the photos/drawings I made over the span of 18 years -

In 2009 I decided to end my art quest. It was an amazing path to follow for 18 years, and I felt Van Gogh by my side for the duration of it - I indeed needed his positive intervention and help because many a year I was jobless without income, yet I rarely despaired or felt afraid because I felt an invisible hand guiding me along. Soon after, my marriage with Rachel ended, and this made sense since my life had become somewhat directionless once I had left the path of art. In 2012, nothing holding me to the town I was living in, I decided to go on a journey to a far off place, in SE Asia, Thailand, Burma, Indonesia. I had no definite plans, and I ended up living in Chiang Mai for 3 months. About a month into my stay I discovered an "art shack" in an alleyway 2 blocks from my apartment. Inside the shack were Van Gogh paintings from various periods of his life - The Hague, Arles, Auvers, Paris - still, even after I had left the path of art, the hand of Van Gogh was still guiding me along on my travels, making sure to remind me to be grateful for all of the beauty and the pain in the world. I recalled his final letters from Auvers, where he began to think more and more about death - how death reminded him of stars and how he imagined that when he was at Eternity's Gate (oh my god, I find myself crying at this moment!)  he would become star dust, floating forever and ever over all and everything. 

I ended up traveling to various places from 2012-2015. It was during this time that I made your acquaintance, Kait. In a way I gave you 20 years of myself bundled together into a dream setting.

in 2015 I took a job at the Art Institute of Chicago, returning after so many years. During my first week of walking to the museum/work, I felt like a ghost, someone dead who was returning to a past place which I had once roamed. On the walk I noticed a painting upon a parking garage, yes, it was Van Gogh once again by my side, gazing at me from 3 stories up - 

A little later I find out that Van Gogh's Bedroom was the current exhibit - walking through the galleries gazing at Van Gogh's life on the walls, I realized that he was going to be with me to the very end, and I could not help smiling at how strange and dream-like life can be.

And today, walking to the library to study chess and make upcoming travel plans, I put it all together when I saw the new film coming out this week, At Eternity's Gate, just a week before I am to take off for a far away place, wandering once again, with Van Gogh by my side, perhaps not only guiding me, but getting a chance to see a world that perhaps he misses, through the eyes of someone he has picked to be his guide in this crazy and turbulent world. All I can say is - "Vincent, I won't let you down, I will try my best to see some beautiful and painful places, let us wander together in this stupendously mysterious place, forever and ever, never losing hope, always striving with every ounce of energy to be the best we can be. I love you, Vincent."

Letter to Kait, Part I

Dear Kait,

By chance I see that a new movie is coming out soon -

I find it comforting that in many of my transitional life phases Mr Van Gogh has seemingly been at my side, guiding me to the place that I have been searching for and will eventually reach - Eternity's Gate.

When I graduated college with a business-useless degree (history/philosophy), at the age of 25 (I took the loooonnnng road to my degree), even though I found it difficult to find a job, and for 5 months I searched with no decent offers, I did not give up hope. On the weekends I would visit Ward on his farm and we would talk, drink wine, read poetry, listen to music, and hike in the nearby woods. During the week I slogged a night job on the trucking docks, and I even had a fling with a co-worker. One day after work (3:00am) she approached me and asked if I wanted to go to Denny's (the only all night restaurant in those parts). I agreed and for the next month made it a habit to hang out together after work and we would invariably watch from my car window the sun rise on another suburban workday.

During the days I would search for a job, and sometimes I would take the train into downtown Chicago. I would bring my camera along, at Ward's encouragement, and having no knowledge of art, I would try to see things more deeply than normal. After a 5 mile urban trek/hike   northwards, I would stop at the Why Not Cafe on Belmont Street. The owners would be sitting at a window table playing chess, and above them on the wall was this painting -

 
Around that time I happened to be wandering through the book stacks at the local college library, and I came across The Complete Letters of Vincent van Gogh. Unfortunately, I only saw volume II, and having no idea what the book was about, or who van Gogh was, I checked the book out and discovered inside the cover a collection of letters which were colored with truth and spoke to me directly, and I felt like a man who comes across a desert oasis by chance after walking for days under a hot sun with no water - refreshed, inspired, and  feeling that I had been given a fresh chance at life's journey. I decided that I would read 1 letter per night, while laying in bed, before going to sleep. As the months went by and the letters seeped into me slowly, my camera wanderings took on added significance and meaning to me.

I continued searching for work, and my journeys into the city fascinated me. I had never traveled before, but I felt a dormant seed inside my heart which was beginning to expand and grow, and so I imagined that if I wanted to one day travel to far away places, I had to first travel to the nearby ones, and Chicago being a large, interesting city, was the first place which I traveled to. One late summer's day I was wandering around near the Art Institute and I happened to pass the Fine Arts building, which at that time had an art theater  which showed art films. The movie poster outside the theater was -

The last time I had seen a movie in a movie house was with Rick when I was in college, and he invited me to see a cheesy sci-fi. Even though I had little money, usually not more than $20 in my pocket at any time, having recently been reading 1 Van Gogh letter per night, I felt myself being tugged into the theater, and after parting with a precious $7 settled into the darkness with 10 or 15 others. On the screen for the next 2 hours I watched scenes of astounding beauty and pain, triumph and failure. After leaving the theater I decided to hike to the Why Not and take another look at the Van Gogh portrait hanging above the chess players.

On November 1st 1991 I started a new job in downtown Chicago, and my coworkers happened to all be artists of some sort. I felt that Van Gogh had something to do with this fortuitous turn of events. A few months before I was surrounded by a vast gray suburban wasteland of shops and malls, warehouses, factories, and cars, and considered chucking it  away and starting fresh in California (Ward let me borrow his orange rucksack for the journey west but a week before I was to leave my car broke down and I took that as a sign that I needed to hang around Chicago and wait for better prospects). But now all was new inside and outside of my eyes - I was working in the historic Monadnock building -

surrounded by trains, large masses of people, artists, a few blocks from the Art Institute of Chicago, where on Tuesdays (free day) I would visit after work and gaze at this portrait -

2 months later I decided to dedicate the next 10 years of my life to art/photography. Some of the photos I made that first year, 1992, looked like this -

 

and I even made a few portraits of Ward as the years began to pass -

and one of his paintings -

and began to draw to help my eyes see more details in everyday life -