Phuket, Thailand II
I have been here for maybe 5 days.
I would think of this place as a place I could live forever – might be because I just got here. I haven’t felt that with many cities though, I also came to the realization that probably a small town fits me better than a huge city. I guess it truly depends on what I have to do. That’s a very backwards thought; I had the impression that what I wanted was a huge city considering that my hometown was feeling small…I guess this is what people call “find yourself”.
The pros of being in a small town is something very significant: people are much more laid back, everything is much more slow, life is not a rush. I was listening to a podcast that said that people walking and talking speed depends a lot on the city (radiolab’s podcast) that got me thinking and well, considering that I have never lived in a city with tons of traffic besides Bangkok I think it makes sense, I really lost a bunch of time stuck with traffic, I probably shouldn’t say lost but it felt like it.
I am very biased right now and I can’t even think of the cons.
I doubt there’s more than 10k locals here to be honest, although there are many more close towns (~10mins drive) each have something different to offer, this town seems to be the perfect combination to make me want to live here forever, close to the beach, everything I need around is on a walking distance (restaurants, groceries stores, I don’t think I need much more). Almost every local have a decent idea of English, which makes communication much easier.
I get to live here until December 15 and I am already thinking about coming back, I guess this time overstaying is not an option; I want to keep my promise, one time. I was also thinking about Costa Rica because it might be similar but maybe I will hate the ocean after 7 weeks (doubtfully).
I went nuts, I ordered salad for the first time of my life and the next day I did it again, I probably can’t think of something more out of character than that… Not in the food department.
I am living with Magne a professional poker player that I met in Buenos Aires and thinking about it I haven’t had the urge to play poker but when I discuss hands with him I really want to play… Ugh. Is good that we have a similar sense of what living life is, our lifestyle is pretty much the same at the moment, I will like to brag that I manage to wake up earlier though. I also got pretty interested in connect 4, a game that seems very widespread here, just for entertaining sake, Magne crushed me pretty badly I probably lost like 9/10, I want to get better at it…
In other stuff, like a month ago I was reading 2+2 and there was this huge long thread about a guy who was a week away to be homeless and the 2+2 community decided to help him, people started to give him small jobs, one of those was to make a video hugging people and, at some point people just started to offer donations and I almost did that too until I read that one of his dreams was to have a website and help people so it was almost a no-brainer to offer him my help in that regards, Jared has been working on the website (all the content is his creation) and I gave some help here and there with setting up the website/design, definitely check Jared Huggins out, he has a very original and touching story to share with the world and fortunately things are getting much better for him.
Good luck Jared! I think if he gets picked to play The Big Game he has a decent shot of winning some money, I heard he was getting coach by people that are very good; Jared said he was going to give away a percentage of his winnings, I find that very brave.