Sometimes, doing NOTHING is the thing to do.

The next day was pretty chill. Inter a breakfast with Ben and Paul, we just stayed along the river, talking about life, politic, travel and self esteem.

Ben and I climbed the mountain and the 300.000 steps to watch the sunset at the White Buddha “temple”. When everybody left the place after the sky went crazy red, we stayed there, lying on the floor, watching at the stars, listening to the geckos calling for their beloved one and the dogs barking far away.

This is a thing that you have to do if you stay in Pai one day. This huge Buddha staring at you, while you contemplate the stars procures an amazing feeling of peace. The white of the stone is contrasted by the dark blue of the night sky, I can say that I rarely see something that beautiful.

We had some drinks and ended up in the easy Garden to listen to some guys playing guitar. It felt great to be in good company. I didn’t want to live Pai but I had booked an hostel in Chiang Rai to stay three days.

Ben asked me “why don’t you stay then?”. It was so simple. I forgot that I had the chance to chose to do exactly what I wanted to do for this trip, listening to my desires and follow them. I wanted to stay so I’ll stay! I cancelled straight away the hostel in Chiang Rai and felt so happy. A simple decision like that… I realized that staying two days each time in each city was maybe not the only way of traveling and that I was going to be on the road for 5 month. Better take a rest and experience the life in small town like this if I needed to! Of course, a part of me regrets not to have seen the white temple in Chiang Rai which looks absolutely marvelous but I didn’t want to feel guilty about that. A lot of people come back from their daily trips in the hostel and tell me all the great things they have done, all the amazing things they have seen and “what? You haven’t seen this while you were here? You missed the beeeest!”… Well, you feel bad but if you think about it, everybody has a different experience and I also saw amazing things on my trip already. Also I think more and more this trip as a introspective journey. A lot of people are traveling in Thailand for one month and are doing express tours of the country, which I think is alright and totally understandable but I have the chance to stay in South East Asia for 5 month. I can take my time and live somewhere. Get to know the places and the locals and the people.