Going North

Last month I spent a couple days in Chiang Mai, the northern Thai city where Jip has fond memories and we have several pals. The idea was to look for reasons to move there some day. I found several.

The top one is that despite being the second largest town in the kingdom, Chiang Mai’s population is literally fifty times smaller than Bangkok’s. Right away I found fewer degrees of separation between people. In a pattern familiar to me from living in Seattle, folks who have similar interests seem likely to know each other in Chiang Mai.

In forty-eight hours I had about a dozen good talks with old friends or friends of friends. Everyone was sold on our coming there – sometimes because they like us, but always because they like their lives there. Most people talked about quality of life: Chiang Mai offers sports, dining, friendship, and health care opportunities that compare favorably with Bangkok’s, but without the smog and traffic.

Making ends meet might be a bigger challenge up there, but with some creativity and lead time it wouldn’t be impossible. And there are non-financial perks: one can get anywhere in town on a bicycle. We could be in the mountains in minutes by car. I even went for a run outdoors for the first time in three months.

Jip supports my explorations. Going up there meant I was away from her for the longest period since we arrived in Thailand, but things went fine with her and the caregivers. Probably I’ll return to Chiang Mai every couple of months for a few days each trip, in order to expand the network and double check that the docs will be good enough. Perhaps we’ll become northerners in a year or so.