writer. traveller. life unraveller.
So long, Bert, my bicycle buddy. I’ve known this Dutch fella for a year now. We met in the Hideout, an awesome little breakfast/lunch spot in old Chiang Mai. I spotted him in cycling garb, ready to brave another fierce climb up the long, steep, and winding road of Chiang Mai’s resident mountain, Doi Suthep.... Continue Reading →
Aren't we all just trying to get closer to God? Everything we do, even the stuff that seems to go against God are all just methods, attempts, grasping for an infinite source of love. For Love. And the whole time it's already who we are. I am loving awareness. So are you. When you close... Continue Reading →
Putting down the usual introspective musings and dusting off the memory cells (what’s left of them) for a little storytelling inspired by Halloween 🙂 As someone who has travelled to a few off-the-beaten path tracks in her life (both geographically and metaphysically), I’ve confronted several unpleasant creatures in my wanderings. Some of them have been... Continue Reading →
There are few things I love as much as I love riding my bike. When I was 8 years old, I’d spend whole summer days riding my bike, making up destinations just to have an excuse to push pedal my way down empty roads spotted with afternoon sun and the promise of something magical. The... Continue Reading →
Autumn has arrived, and with it the scent of, well, death. While that sounds morbid, it’s really just nature doing its thing. Fallen leaves return to their original home, mixing with the soil and other plant material to create humus, the decaying matter that eventually becomes new life. You might notice that the word humus... Continue Reading →
Years ago, when high up in the Himalayan mountains during a spiritual yoga retreat, I adopted a behaviour as a strategy for surviving marital separation. It’s called the Laughing Dying Cockroach. One lies flat on her back, kicking her arms and legs in the air while busting a most shameless gut-splitting laugh, using her anger,... Continue Reading →
One of the travel questions I always get asked, especially by women who haven’t visited the tropics, is how I deal with scary things like giant cockroaches or spiders. The short answer is, I don’t really. I have no method, other than to hope I’m not confronted with one, and when (never if) I... Continue Reading →
I have a favourite breakfast spot in Chiang Mai. As we’ve been living out of a kitchenless hotel/guesthouse for the past few months, I’ve been forced to obtain sustenance in restaurants in lieu of making my own meals. Hard life, right? I actually inwardly complained about it at first, until I realized how nice it... Continue Reading →
Someone told me I should be writing stories about my travels. But the thing is, I'm not really travelling much these days. I spend most of the year between three places: Canada, my home, and Indonesia and Thailand. I've spent enough time in all three countries that my eyes have become a bit, well, immune... Continue Reading →
A long time ago, in what seems like another life, I sat at a temple in Chiang Mai, Thailand chatting with a young monk. The experience was part of an initiative called “Monk Chat”, offered at several Buddhist temples around Thailand’s northern urban darling. The city’s novice monks––the young, and effectively in-training monks––sit with interested... Continue Reading →
colleen thornton 