Pai and Wat Pa Tam Wua monestry.

I was on my way to Pai again, a 3 hours busride with so many curves and crazy busdrivers that most rides contains vomit. Luckily mine didn't this time.  I was meeting up with Sam again, who I met in Sukhothai. On our way to a nice National Park with a hotspring and some caves to see. Two years ago it was free, now we had to pay 6 euro to get in. Not a lot of money but they didn't changed anything. I found that kind of annoying. Pai changed a lot in town. Local restaurants were taking over by foreigners. Lots of tourists, even more than two years ago, and lots of bars.

The national park had a map, it looked very simple, just follow the road, and we went to the hotsprings first. That was nice, after a hour I said let's see the rest of the park. We followed the road for 6 hours and we saw nothing from the map.

What we saw/did: a lot of potholes, cornfields, local people working hard, good views, mainly unpaved paths, downhill&uphill, an abended cave, no tourism at all, an amazing girl gave as some mandarins and mango, giving a local lady and all her veggies a ride, asking people for the way, no English speaking people anywhere, crossing small bridges, put thanaka on our faces, 4 small villages, driving without helmets, taking pictures, complaining about abdominal muscle pain, eating only the mandarins and mango for the whole day, enjoying every view and almost every second of the day. THANKS SAM. You're the best

Back to civilisation, back to a very busy Pai. Get some very good food, Khaw Soi, a quick rest and more food. A little drink at the Jikko Bar and early to bed. Next day we went to the river and i was reading the book about the monestry where I was going to the next week. A Vipassana Meditation Monestry in the mountains.  But first some nice talks and head/handstands by the river. Bye Sam

Next day got up early to go to the monestry. Five other girls were also going with the same bus. We arrived around 15.00h. The location was great and it felt very peaceful. It was a famous monestry in Thailand, there were only living 6 monks and everyday around 100 tourist, to learn vipassana meditation. Every day was the same schedule. Wake up early, offering food to the monks, have breakfast, meditate, offering food to the monks, have lunch, meditate, have a break, sweep the leaves mindful, chanting, meditate and sleep. (indeed no dinner)
We got two pairs of white clothes and a private kuti(bungalow) and we had to participate in the afternoonsession of meditation immidiatly. It felt so unnatural and i didn't felt comfortable.

After three days I was getting used to the whole program, the meditation part was going well sometimes and sometimes I was just sitting and watching everyone around. I wasn't talking a lot to people and my mind was getting calmer. It felt peaceful. I still wasn't learning the meditation skill that good. A little progress is progress right? I went in to fasting for three days and that helped a lot. My body had time to be in total rest, no energy needed to digest my food. So i could put all my energy into meditating 🧘‍♂️ it was working and my mind became clearer. At the same time these changes made me think more about my life and myself and that was difficult sometimes. A very eye-opening experience.

I missed some guidance, the monks were not around a lot and the manager was a pain in the ass. One evening I had an amazing conversation with one of the volunteers, Pong's dad, and he was a monk before he came to work here. He talk a lot about having a monkey mind, we always swinging from the past to the future and back, and how meditation is helping to stay more in the now. The now is the only thing we have. The future is build from desires and we are not allowed to have desires. So no need to think about that. On some points I agree but not on this one. There is nothing wrong with having some desires and dreams.

After seven days, hours of wandering around, meditating for days, making many new friends, sweeping lots of leeves, being completely offline, feeding fishes, eating twice a day, eating nothing for three days, sleeping in the cold mountains it felt like it was time to go back to the real world.

Mae Hong Son was a small city south. Got a ride with a local named DaneiDanei, it was a nice ride. He didn't speak English and my Thai is not any better. So hello hello was the only thing I understood. But we had nice talks. Monologues only.