Life is a grand festival and I'm living it right now

"Because I don't live in either my past or my future. I'm interested only in the present. If you can concentrate always on the present, you'll be happy."

That is one thing I have learned while travelling. I usually worry about things too much and I've been learning to let go and really concentrate on the present. I also have grown as a thinking person and understood lots of things that I didn't before.

Living and working in Pai has been both an amazing opportunity and an mind changing experience. When I bought my flight ticket from Singapore to Chiang Mai, I knew that I could have gone to some new place, but I still wanted to go back to this one precious place I felt like home. But what should people really know about Pai ? Always when travellers are asking what has been your favourite place or where should they go next, I tell them to go to Pai. It's not a huge place with loads of shops or nightclubs. But it's full of things to do, after chilling in a hammock next to musicians playing gypsy tunes. I loved every second I spend in Pai in November to December. Now I came back for another three weeks to meet old friends, work in a bar&restaurant and enjoy jamming with talented musicians. Days passed really fast even I ended up doing lots of things beside work and chilling.

 

One of the many attractions in Pai are hot springs, there are natural ones in jungle (20 bath/0,50€) and proper built ones in spas (80-200 bath). I enjoyed both but the feeling bathing in a jungle with locals and beautiful view excited me more. There's canyon, caves, view points at the top of the mountains, beautiful jewellery shops, walking street, chilling live music bars and cafes etc. There's many waterfalls I went with a motorbike to, but also this one with nice five hour hike. It was a cold sunday night when we sat on a bonfire as usually, jamming, while my friend got an idea to go camping over night at this one waterfall far away in the mountains. Me and people from our hostel were excited about the crazy idea and already started to make lists what to take with. I had no expectations, but as soon as I was hiking this jungle path with my backpack full of useful equipments I realised this night was going to be magical. After five hours wading through rivers and getting wet, letting the sun to dry us we continued that path mix of rocks, plants, river, insects and huge trees above us. Still three more hours of hiking till we would get there. 

Finally we came to this beautiful waterfall, not at the photos above, i was too amazed to even take my tablet out of my bag. We went for a swim and I got an stupid but at the time very clever idea to climb to the top. Well, I got there easily, but after looking down my friends were turned out to be little ants on the ground. It was the moment when I realised I am sometimes too crazy and forgetting to think before. So so slippery and long way down but I did it. I was happy again and had a great laugh. So the night came to our little camping area. I had a hammock like couple of others and around campfire there were 11 sleeping bags on the ground. Amazing and tripping night, I haven't had that much fun dancing in the shadows and staring at the full moon with all the colours of a rainbow. We sang together and played all night long with jungle drum and guitar. 

What I'm really going to miss is the atmosphere. In Pai it's magical. I had my little Pai family at the first time, but I got a new one this time as well. Everyone who I have met in Pai have liked it. I'm glad I get to know to so many new people among my old friends. I worked for awhile in a restaurant to save money and it was situated at a perfect place (photo above), couldn't ask for more. Someone might think I'm crazy when I say this, but I could totally live in Pai for longer time like an half year. I feel like home there and I'm going back after couple of weeks  anyway ;) It's so hard to stay away !

Take care guys, hope you are living in the present. Remember to sing, enjoy little things, laugh, try meditation, write, make art, do what you know the best, and respect nature and people around you. Stay openminded and happy. Hugs.

Am I still in Southeast Asia ?

I have to admit something to everyone. Singapore was really cool. I kind of fell in love with its beautiful, organized, safe, modern, clean and fancy atmosphere which was so different from other southeast Asian countries. Skyscrapers, western business men and women walking on the streets, well working underground system and of course more expensive accommodation, food and transportation made Singapore feel like I was totally somewhere else than in southeast Asia. Everyone spoke English and polices were looking after bad behaving citicents. I really had some problems with this country's strict rules about littering, eating or drinking in MRT, the bubble gum rule and crossing streets with red traffic lights. I'm so used to eat or drink while I'm traveling in a bus or train so this rule was quite hard to remember. I also have to admit that I ate one lollipop by mistake waiting the MRT to come, ran across the road with red traffic lights and dropped maybe something by accident. Anyway the most important thing here is that the police didn't see me and give 500-1000 Singapore dollars fine which is half amount in euros. 

Singapore has lots of things to see and places to spend your money for. Somehow I managed to do everything free, I went to a teather where they played live music twice in a day so I listened young musicians playing jazz and Chinese traditional music played with Chinese instruments. I found my way to the rooftop where I watched the lightning show which is shown every night from Marina Sands Bay.

 The city lights were amazing at night. 

It was so easy to stay 6 days in Singapore, I stayed in a nice and tidy hostel 10 minutes MRT ride away from the central city and Marina Bay, with all inexpensive local food stalls. I totally fell in love with the food there. You could choose from lots of different meats, fish, vegetables and noodles the one you liked and they gave you rice with that and everything cost like 1 euro. But when I went to business area in the city the food was almost five times more expensive. At the first day I already made friends with my neighbours who owned this awesome restaurant and as soon as I went to eat there more than two times they gave me discount. Perfect place I thought.

Then what comes to shopping I have to admit I did some in Singapore's long shopping street where's so many stores and malls that you will go crazy. One day shopping was good for me, I found some stuff what I really needed. The prices though weren't even close to Thailand's and I ended up spending much more I had spent before in this trip in couple of days. 

Singapore is so close to Malaysia but the biggest difference is that there's not that much Muslims or Indians and more Chinese and western people. What really was following some kind of secret law was that everyone wore really fancy clothes. Lots of young people were fashionistas and women were really wearing very high high heels. And I did something I hadn't done in ages; wore makeup and got fancy too.