How the universe gave us a big reality check. Travel isn’t always sunshine and rainbows.
This next adventure I’ve decided to attempt to record live thoughts and reactions to things that occur, so come with me on the ride of attending a music festival with no idea how it will play out with no gear!
1:20pm (11/8/24) We may have gotten ourselves in a pickle. We got tickets to a music/experience festival in the jungle of Chiang Dao. Since we arrived at the bus station for our round trip transportation we have been moved to a 7/11 to be boarded into pick up trucks with seats and covers. When talking to the guy to get us on the truck he couldn’t find our name on the list but we showed our email and QR confirmation and he said huh okay and assigned us a truck. So hopefully they have our gear promised with the tickets upon arrival…. Anyways, we hopped in the back piled in with a total of 10 people, gear and backpacks and now await the 4-5 hour drive through mountain roads in the rain. We got tickets that included camping gear for our two nights in the jungle to hear from another camper that the festival has no rain gear for the tents. It isn’t projected to rain but has been raining for a few days meaning the ground and the air are very much damp. So we prepare for the adventure. Keeping hopes high, spirits joyous and laughter abundant.
2:00pm (11/8/24) I will introduce new characters as time goes on this weekend I assume. I will do my best to describe them well.
Character 1: Red “like the color”. She is already one to bring much laughter. Two of the people on our truck are French and upon finding out this information she proceeded to recite the only French phrases she knew, all of which were incredibly dirty and very fun upon translation. This young Israeli woman, has of course red hair, a small stature, and is a LED performer at the festival.
2:45pm (11/8/24) We are driving backwards. Yes. Backing up on the mountain road. Because someone said toilet? NOT how roads work but there are no real rules in Thailand.
11:45pm (11/8/24) Well. We did in fact find ourselves in a pickle. Deep in the brine. There will be music (and when I say music I mean BUMPIN oonsa oonsa loud ass DJ sets) playing until 4am tonight approximately mmmmm 200ft away from our tent. Full blast. Also not to mention the “bedding” provided is a small yoga bolster for a pillow and a fuzzy blanket per person in a tent with no rain fly. Backs meet ground, hips meet ground, shoulders meet ground, morale meet ground. SOOOO that’s a big oops. We find ourselves pondering how did we get here? What signs did we miss that the universe was sending that this is not our…path? Maybe the tickets being “sold out” when we looked online initially, nope found a different website problem solved. Maybe it was when we got to the bus station and our names weren’t on the list? Nope, they just put us in a truck. MAYBE it was when we got to the venue and had to walk up a long mudslide of a path to another booth that did not have our names on a list? NOPE they just wrote our name down. MAYBEEEE it was when we got to the NEXT BOOTH and they ALSO didn’t have any bedding for us because our names weren’t on a list? NOPEEE they just gave us a tent anyways. See the universe didn’t make these roadblocks actual road blocks just minor speed bumps that the nice Thai people just helped us step over without missing a beat. Sooooo the universe yes may have a sense of humor but like next time it can just say “don’t fucking do that because you will not enjoy this arrangement whatsoever you boujee bitch”. Anyways now we try to sleep and hope that tomorrow shows us why we did end up here, XOXO your mycelium festival attendees.
12:00am (11/9/24) I have dreamt this moment multiple times before. Dejavu is crazy… welp maybe I could have prevented it. OR maybe it means we are exactly where we are supposed to be? I don’t know whyyyy but maybe we are?
5:40am (11/9/24) we managed to survive for the 5 hours they played, to just have the rain start dumping. Starting to feel some drops on our faces we pulled shoes in from outside that were previously covered by plastic bags, covered our stuff in our towels inside the tent and ourselves in our rain jackets… we will see! I’m tempted to feel like the lesson is with earplugs and an eye mask you can avoid most things lol but surely after this election the first lesson learned cannot be to block out sound and sight. But maybe a lesson in strong self preparation means the ability to endure hardship.
7:15am (11/9/24) We’re leaving. We woke up in a puddle. Shirts soaked through from the back from the rain. The entirety of the bottom of our tent is not just damp but soaked through and has gotten everything we own soaking wet. So we are leaving. I don’t know how it will happen but we’re going to make it happen.
8:20 (11/9/24) we got our shit together the best we could and went to go look for anyone remotely in charge. To find more campers who had a soaked through tent that had half collapsed on top of them. We all want to leave. But all the organizers are asleep or from what we can tell a few are very high so aren’t much help. We finally found someone that said he could get an organizer but not until after prompting that there are no cars until tomorrow. Mid me writing this at 8:25am one of the young men trying to help us out came back and said no car until tomorrow, the organizer wouldn’t wake up but with some urging he said he can have an organizer come help us when he wakes up.
8:55am (11/9/24) checked in again. No one who can help us is awake apparently. I asked if we could wake someone up. This is getting really dismal.
9:30am (11/9/24) still no progress, talked to 2 more people. Nothing. They’re trying to convince us to go to Chiang Mai and we have yet to talk to anyone is charge. Now we’re looking for a taxi back but it will likely be like $60 just to get there. We had to last minute book stay in pai, it’s all a mess right now. Very happy we have each other.
10:15am (11/9/24) we have talked to a few more people one friend named Finn who is from the states and was helping run somethings said he would happily help us work on a refund when the coordinators wake up. Finally we got an update from the first young man we talked to and he said the coordinator called and he can get us a ride back to pai but it will take 4 hours for the van to get here… so we wait. But! We booked to go back to ing doi so surely Mink will have funny things to say about this.
Character 2: Mink (pronounced more like ming). Mink is the woman who runs Ing Doi guest house. She is no more than 5 ft tall. She is hilariously sarcastic and insists on calling everyone “man” like “cmon man”, “what’s up man”, “what do you want man”! All the time. She is constantly making people laugh and absolutely adored the fact that my mom and aunt had stayed at her hostel a decade prior, so much so that she shared it with the everyone at breakfast when we arrived :) we also discovered she has her home stay listed on hostel world and booking.com under multiple names for multiple prices some as cheap as $21 for one night in a private bungalow some as expensive as double that. Clever lady that one. From Izzy’s input, “her guest house has a kitchen, whether it is open or not is not determined by hours or even what ingredients she does or doesn’t have, but much more likely dependent on her mood, what side of the bed she woke up on that day or perhaps the weather. Whether she will make you food is a bit of luck of the draw, did you get there when she’s in the mood ”
1:00pm (11/9/24) we are waiting, whilst talking to a new character which has been very fun :) but still waiting with the agreement after finally talking to a coordinator that he paid 2500 bht to get this car to come and go back to pai that was a little more than half of what we paid to be here and for transport, so that was the trade off. They were so kind in their response to hearing about our experience. It is so interesting to think about how in the states in this situation it would have been a “well you signed up for this, you already paid, and you have to pay for the transport” but here it was apologetic tones of feeling badly that our experience has been so poor and recognition that we have had a rough night and need some accommodation. So we wait patiently for our return.
Character 3: Eli (Ellie) was wonderful. He is a solo traveler from Israel that we found ourselves sitting next to while waiting for the van back to pai. We sat chatting with him for 3 hours maybe? It began with him pointing at a small bug (which we labeled “flying ants”) that was dancing to the music playing. This led to a conversation he brought up about how hilarious it is to describe animals as if someone has never heard of them before, he likes to end with the most jarring information when he does so. For example a Giraffe he describes as “like a really big horse that has this ridiculously long neck like as high as the tree tops with these spots and little horns and oh did I mention is yellow?” We also talked about coincidences. To which he felt that anytime there is some kind of inconvenience in his life he looks for what is interesting or weird about the situation. He was fascinated by the idea that if you meet someone on the street, you had to have hit every red and green light to have the perfect timing to meet this person. Or maybe he missed his regular bus to university because there were two people that were supposed to sit next to each other in lecture and if he hadn’t missed the bus he would’ve taken one of their seats. It was a really beautiful way to look at shifts and inconveniences in routine. He was lovely.
2:30pm (11/9/24) WE ARE ON A TRUCK!!! This is thrilling and we know we are making the best decision for ourselves. The rain stopped and there were tens of little yellow butterfly’s circling the front of the truck. We have not left yet… but hey we are closer than before!
2:45pm (11/9/24) we are on our way. Thank god.
4:10pm (11/9/24) things are looking up! We got on the road and immediately proceeded to pass out from being so tired, I strapped myself to the seat with a bungee cord so I wouldn’t roll off the seat into the middle of the truck, a good sight to see. Our driver is the sweetest person ever. We stopped at a bathroom and he excitedly told us the next stop was 7/11 where we got the mandatory 7/11 snacks of onigiri and fun flavored chips. And when we got back in the truck he brought us some fried bananas! He was very happy to share a Thai favorite with us :) Which we have nicknamed tree bacon as when they are friend they curl up and are bacon colored. But are soooo delicious they don’t need anything with them. Just to say we are in much higher spirits!
7:10pm (11/9/24) the rest of our ride was wonderful. Our driver was so sweet and gave us a blanket as it got colder and at a rest stop another bus of people headed to pai gave us some beers! Friendly folk :) upon finally getting to pai we went to 3 different motorbike rentals 2 of which didn’t have any cheap bikes left both only having 1 or 2 bikes left in general then finally got to the third place that had 2 bikes but for 250/day so we took that on the chin and biked to our home stay. Where we have found no one. The people to check us in are not here. Not answering messages and we are being eaten by mosquitos. This day feels to be never ending.
8:30pm (11/9/24) final update of this horrendous whirlwind. Mink and Jake showed up at about 7:30 and we were able to get to our room, to realize we had accidentally booked the one with the outdoor shower… which may sound luxury but after this past 48 hours we really were looking forward to getting clean inside. But all is well we are showered and ready to pass out.
11:30am (11/11/24) The following day had its own complications and left us feeling like we were in a big of a travel rut with very little going our way and humbling our expectations left and right. We also received some very sad news the morning of the 10th at Ing doi regarding the sweetest kitten that we had spent the past 4 days playing with religiously, we miss you marble. All of this is most definitely a strong lesson. Considering we were just about a month into our travels and the biggest bummer we had faced was a nasty over priced breakfast? We needed a reality check of some sort. The universe definitely gave us a big one but hey sometimes that’s what you need. Now we’re moving forward finally able to get motorbikes this morning, laying next to a pool. Life is good, we are grateful for the moment we are in and the lessons to be learned from our past few days. Thanks for coming along the journey!
Love and miss you all!
Love,
Luna