Revelations

Chiang Mai – Post COVID

/ betstravelsabout / 7 Comments

” I love your toenails!” 

Walking in the only sizeable park in Chiang Mai which just happens to be near where I am staying, I heard a soft voice say, “I love your toenails!” It was dark, around six o’clock, so when I turned around to hear where the voice came from, there was a small woman with long, gray hair and glasses. She didn’t fit the image of most Thai women in their 50’s or 60’s, but I figured that strange remark must have come from her when there was no one else around. Why would she say that I wondered? After a moment’s hesitation, I realized she was looking at and pointing to my newly painted toenails which I had recently painted as an accompaniment to my summer sandals.

Recovering from her unexpected compliment, I felt she wanted to continue the conversation so I immediately got one started by asking her some questions. We continued to walk together for about ten minutes covering such subjects as her family, what she did for a living, children and husband…typical things one talks about with those who are native to the country you are visiting. Somehow in that short space of time, we landed on what was going on in our world today. This really got her talking… much of which I had difficulty understanding. We had entered into the realm of philosophy which can be a difficult topic to address when speaking to someone with an entirely different language. It’s something I’ve never been able to do with any Thai person in all the times I have visited this country. Continue reading →

A Little Piece of Heaven ?

/ betstravelsabout / 6 Comments

When I begin to feel the stress of everyday living, one of the best things I can do is to get outside and head for either the beach or the trees which are both only a fifteen minute walk from my house. I’ll bet that anyone who lives in a the city might think that quite wonderful and be envious. I agree that it is, but I have a terrible confession to make… I don’t do this enough. Why is that when I am retired and only have myself to care for? Could it have something to do with not having enough time, or might it be a bit of laziness, sometimes forgetfulness, or some other lame excuse? Regardless for what the reason is for my not getting in touch with nature more often when it’s right at my doorstep, the one thing I am certain of is that when I make time for a walk in nature, I return home feeling invigorated and more at peace. And, yes,I am more motivated to write about it on my blog.

Continue reading →

Continuing on the Road Less Travelled

/ betstravelsabout / 3 Comments

Where has the time gone! I can’t believe that my last blog was published at the end of April over three months ago. It’s no wonder that feelings of guilt have been knocking at my door. Of course, I am as guilty as any decent human being for making up excuses about why we aren’t doing what we know deep down we ought be doing. Okay, perhaps I am being a bit harsh on myself because I need to acknowledge the fact that with the arrival of spring, I needed to get my veggie garden started. By June my transplants had to be put in and before I could catch my breath lettuce, spinach, and other greens were all begging to be picked. My days were consumed by my gardening and attempts to do a bit of landscaping around my property. Dare I compare gardening to a battle that just seems to get a little bit more difficult every year? The other battle I had to overcome was the plain and simple fact that I had lost my mojo to write. I could blame this on COVID, rampant inflation, unpredictable weather, along with myriad other reasons, but I won’t because the truth of it was that I felt I didn’t really have anything to write about. I hadn’t travelled anywhere for over a year and was faced with the glaring reality that my travelling days were probably over forever.

Continue reading →

Let Nature Be Our Teacher

/ betstravelsabout / 5 Comments

Do you get as tired and depressed as I can after listening to the latest news reports which seem to to be getting worse with each passing day? Having heard enough about the unthinkable catastrophe quickly unfolding in the Ukraine, I was about to turn off my radio when I heard Matt Galloway, on CBC’s The Current, suggest we stay tuned for his next interview about a rare kind of whale recently sighted in the St. Lawrence River.

Since COVID arrived with its challenges two years ago and our changing climate has so far tested us with a winter like no other that we have ever seen, I have developed the ‘not so great’ habit of listening to the morning news over a larger than usual cup of coffee. I rationalise this by telling myself it’s better to hear about the catastrophe taking place in the Ukraine in the morning rather than seeing it on the late night news before going to bed.

Returning now to the narwhal sighting, for some inexplicable reason this was a story I felt I needed to hear more about. It’s not surprising that whales, birds and other wildlife are being seen outside their natural habitats these days as our climate changes. So what is so unusual about one baby narwhal sighting so far south when normally he hangs out in the far north of the Arctic? Hoping it might possibly be a good news story which could help shake off my doldrums, I grabbed a pen to make some notes because down deep I could finally feel a topic to write about for my next blog post.

Continue reading →

How to Find Happiness

/ betstravelsabout / 10 Comments

Finding happiness is going to be a huge challenge for me and so many others in 2022 but we can do it if we want to. After three years of a myriad of changes in my life, such as leaving a marriage of 25 years, two moves, buying a house, and learning to adapt to living on my own, I am finally in a good place where I know that I must get back to my writing. I have promised myself, let’s call it a New Year’s resolution, that there will be no more excuses for procrastinating. After considering a number of ideas for writing about my travels “within” rather than “without” since COVID isn’t allowing me to travel very far these days, I chose to tackle a topic of interest to me for a very long time…happiness! Why have we human beings been pursuing happiness, this elusive state of mind, ever since we came to this earth, and why have we failed so miserably at achieving it?

When I stop to reflect on this topic, I realise that my interest in what happiness is began more than 20 years ago. Up to that point, it really was just a word with no significant meaning attached to it. In fact, I had never even stopped to consider whether I was a happy person or not. I was too busy working and getting on with my busy life.

Then one day out of the blue, I overheard a conversation between two people where one of them remarked that in his experience, he had discovered that many people were unable to share in the happiness of another. He concluded that it was almost as if they were jealous of anyone who was always happy. On the other hand, he wondered if it was a case of that old saying “Misery loves company.” It’s true that we all want to be happy, yet we can’t seem to achieve it for some reason. Oh yes, some of us can put on a happy face when underneath we are not. It could be a mask covering up latent anger, sadness, or anxiety which we don’t want others to see. So I began to think about why we would rather talk about our misery instead of doing something about it. Are we afraid to seek our own happiness because it might seem selfish, or is it because we have the wrong idea about what could bring it to us causing us to search in all the wrong places?

Continue reading →