Still catching up to the present (only two weeks behind!), but here are some more stories from Thailand.

The morning of the 19th, exhausted from the shenanigans of the previous evening, we awoke exhausted and excited to embark on the next leg of our journey. We were headed to a small island called Koh Tao (Turtle Island), world renowned as one of the best places to dive and learn how to dive.

After many days of debate, we decided getting PADI certified was a good investment, and couldn’t wait to get started. The only issue was that it is a total pain the ass to get from Chiang Mai to Koh Tao, and just generally to move around Thailand. I’m not sure why, but getting pretty much anywhere feels like it requires about a million transfers and random stops.

Anyhow, our plans were set: we were to fly from Chiang Mai to Bangkok, hop on an overnight train to Chumpon, and then catch a morning ferry to Koh Tao. Total travel time: 21 hours.

A place down the street had this dank looking tilapia that I’d been meaning to try, so I packed my bags, and went to devour some fish. I had been running low on time and the taxi was waiting, so after quickly eating, I ran back to the guesthouse ready to get our long journey started.

To my confusion, instead of being ready to go in the taxi, Jason, along with the guesthouse staff were huddled around a computer with concerned looks on their faces. Turns out, we were had some flight issues. Instead of booking a flight from Chiang Mai – Bangkok, we had actually booked a flight the inverse direction from Bangkok – Chiang Mai. As we were already in Chiang Mai, the flight we had booked was rather useless at this point, and I started laughing uncontrollably. In the past 7 days, I had experienced more travel mishaps than I had in the past year.

There were a few more flights headed out that afternoon which would still allow us to catch our train, so we said goodbye to the Jaja family, and headed off to the airport to book new flights. Definitely a hiccup in our trip, but a manageable one, and a few days removed it’s rather amusing to look back on.

Lesson Learned 

It’s going to be OK. Whatever happens, remember it’s not a big deal and that you will be okay. Energy flows where attention goes, so keep the adventure, not the mishap in mind.

There’s always a solution. It might not be ideal, and might take you longer than you had hoped – but whatever it is, there is almost always a way to make it better. It might not appear instantly, but instead of panicking, spend your energy looking for that solution and move forward.