Just like that, we are back on the road again… picking up right where we left off. Literally. Bangkok was the final city of our RTW tour that ended in March 2013. Since then, we’ve spent a lot of time working in and touring our own country. Now we find ourselves back in BKK. We had full intentions of telling the rest of our RTW tales and keeping up with the blog during our Canadian stint, but life, work, social commitments, and plain old procrastination seem to have gotten the better of us.
Boarding the plane in Regina… one last blast of arctic chill!
Some of you may have noticed that Mike optimistically announced our triumphant return to blogging in his last post. And then we fell silent. Again. The blame for his empty promise falls squarely on my shoulders. I was supposed to tell you all about the 10-day meditation retreat we attended in Thailand, but in reality I was in the middle of a temporary teaching contract that had me often working 12-14 hour days. I was starting to lose myself in the process, and was in a completely different headspace than I needed to be in to talk about meditation. For now, let me just sum it up like this… the 10 days were some of the most rewarding and challenging in my life. As cliche as it sounds, the retreat was life-changing (though if this last teaching gig has taught me anything, it’s that I still need to find the elusive balance between work and play in my life).
I expect that the next adventure we’re about to embark on (teaching for a year in Bhutan) will be just the experience to help me find that balance. I will be teaching full-time in a government school (with a six-day school week to boot) while being surrounded by a profoundly Buddhist culture that prioritizes and values such things as happiness and meditation. Honestly, we can’t wait to get there! Luckily, we don’t have to wait long…we fly into Bhutan on January 21.
So…. like I said, we’re back in Bangkok. What better time than now to finally finish our RTW posts? Among other things, we want to tell you all about Ayutthaya and stray dog bites, Chiang Mai and the elephants we met there, what it was like to finally be home (and how much at home we felt leaving again), some of the incredible scenery and hikes we experienced on our Eastern Canada summer roadtrip, just how safe Bangkok is right now amid the protests, and how exactly we got the opportunity to live and work in Bhutan for a year.
Our only limiting factor now is the internet. We’re not exactly sure what our internet connection will look like in Bhutan, so we’re going to try to hammer out as much as we can in the next couple of days. Stay tuned!
Beautiful views from the plane…somewhere over Alaska or Russia
Wow Bhutan! It seems that you guys hit the jackpot…it is such an expensive country to travel to, but getting a teaching placement there seems like a wonderful opportunity! Looking forward to reading your posts…safe travels!
Now that we are here, I have to agree with you. I feel like I won one heck of a jackpot. We’ll try to get some photos and posts up on a regular basis, depending on internet availability.