I arrived in Chiang Mai pretty late at night. After hopping into the taxi, I soon realized the driver had no idea where my hostel was, and prayed that all the people he stopped to talk to were locals giving him directions, instead of gangsters who might want to sell a confused foreign tourist into slavery. Although famously known as a tourist destination, the city itself was still quite small and underdeveloped, and I soon regretted booking a hostel for $5 a night. When he started driving down a small dark alley, I started to freak out a little bit, especially when I saw a group of men sitting outside smoking and watching us approach with interest. That group of men turned out to be the owner of my hostel and some of the workers and tourists I would come to know in the next few days. My stay at the Spicy Thai Hostel turned out to be a wonderful experience, one that solidified my resolution to stay at hostels for the rest of my sabbatical.
It turns out that the day after my arrival was special for two reasons. First, the hostel has invited a group of monks to pray and bring auspiciousness to the building, a local custom that follows most new constructions. Second, it was November 8th, 2012, election day in the US. Early that morning, the hostel workers were busy prepping the place for the monks, placing fresh flowers in every corner, and putting strings across everything. After a couple of hours, a group of 6 or 8 monks entered with serious looks on their faces, and sat against the wall. The hotel people kneeled in front of the monks, and the guests interested in participating followed right behind. The head monk took a loom of string and started chanting, and the rest of the monks joined in. This went on for what seemed like forever, and I’m pretty sure one of the monks fell asleep in the middle (as well as quite a few of the guests). After it was finally over, the monks blessed each one of us, and the hostel treated us to a feast of amazing food, so it was worth the tortuous chant session after all.
Since that took most of the day already, I spent the afternoon resting and hanging out with some of the other guests. A few of them were from Australia, most were from Europe, and there was only one other American, Emily, who actually worked at the hostel, having fallen in love with Chiang Mai while visiting. The topic of the election came up, and I soon realized that a lot of these travelers knew more about American politics than I did. When I guiltily admitted that I had little knowledge of their government or current political atmosphere, one guy from Europe said this: “we know more about the American politics because as a world economic and political leader, your country’s decisions affect us more than our politics would affect you.” That night, I watched Obama win his reelection to the cheering of my fellow travelers from around the world, in the tiny common room of a hostel in Thailand, and felt a great sense of national pride.
That seems like a lifetime ago.
The morning of November 9, 2016, I was in the locker room of my gym when Hillary came on TV to give her concession speech. People stopped getting read and a crowd gathered in front of the TV to listen. I don’t think the shock of Trump’s victory had worn off until then, and I started crying. Then I looked around to realize I wasn’t the only one.
I used to think that as a traveler my passion was to see different things, meet different people. It didn’t take me long to realize that for all the differences I discover, I find just as many similarities. It’s heartbreaking to watch what’s going on in the news, when people are blind to how similar they are, and hate each other for such small differences. It’s shameful to have a president who doesn’t seem to want to reconcile our divided country.
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