YA LEUM.5 — Answers arrive always in different formats
Never I receive such a love declaration from someone I barely knew.
His words sounded like a poem to me.
Who is this person? What is it happening? How real is all this?
I repeated countless times Frida’s Khalo mantra “escoge un amante que te mire como se quizás fueras magia”. I saw how he looked at me. Maybe this was it, maybe…
However, part of my recent journey has been about rediscovering the world of emotions, spontaneity, intuition, and creativity. Before I started travelling, I was not happy about the role of my rationality in my life.
It is handy to be pragmatic, analytical, logical, solution driven… but what about the process, the in-betweens, the doubts, and the feelings? This duality has been following me for long time and I wanted this travel to draw the beginning of a new chapter for my mind and my soul. I would take the time to reflect deeply and experience how I wanted my soul to be expressed. The challenge was not to find my creativity or emotions, but feel free to express it.
But then, early in the process I was presented with pure joy and a world of emotions and spontaneity. On opposite of me, Mathieu is driven by intuition and feelings. If it feels good, he does it. If he likes, he does it. If he imagines it, he does it. Imagine my rational me completely out of comfort zone.
“This was not planned. I planned time to be with myself. This is way too early!” — I was about to blow out love because of a plan. Smart, right?
Then I remembered a lesson I taught to myself months before — Answers arrive always in different formats. So, Mathieu was perhaps the path I needed to pave to solve my equation of duality.
Today when I write these memories, he sits in front of me pursuing his life and I see exactly the same free, light and pure man I met in Thailand to teach me about love.
The days to follow were poems hovering as dandelion seeds …
Fun, magical and light.
The four of us spent long time riding the motorcycle. The views were incredible — an immensity of green fields, cropped by high green hills, following curvy wide roads giving to his guests the best memories. The roads were not busy at all, quite empty I would say. I do not drive, I am not so brave when it comes to two wheels. However, once we stopped to visit the Hall of Opium, since it was closed, Madalena and I decided to give it a try. We had our first motorcycle lesson! The area surrounding the Hall of Opium was beautiful and had no one. First, we wondered what we would do and then we got on the motorcycles! I am really so bad, but I managed well! I would be happier with a smaller motorcycle anyways. Problems of small people.
My top favorites of such trips are to stay over in the small villages of the countryside. Thailand is pretty much used to foreigners, but it is always an experience to remember. We all have heard about Thai people’s friendliness, but that is a truly short way to describe them. Thai people are more than a smile, they are helpful, strong and hard workers, they accept other’s people lifestyles, they make a lot of effort to communicate, they have an unquestionable hospitality and one of my favorites, unpretentious, they are simple and down to earth in the interaction among each other.
One night, we were all having street food and sat quickly for a noodle soup. Sitting close to us was the head of police also having dinner. Westerners attract attention, but we are also opened to talk to people. So, it took less than nothing to introduce each other and hear the patrolling experiences of the head of police. A calm man, with an ongoing smile, invited us to visit the headquarters. We did not go due to lack of time. His English was perfect, therefore the conversation was good. As he finishes his meal, Mathieu very nicely asks if he can finish his noodle soup since there was left over!
I activated panic mode inside — Stop!! Do not do that! Why are you doing that? Do not eat nobody’s soup ever! That is sooooooo disgusting!! Anyways, Mathieu did. Nothing happened.
We continued talking and the nice man, for no reason at all, offered us the dinner although we said a zillion times it was not needed. Nice encounter.
In the day after, we reached the long waited Golden Triangle — despite the quietness of the roads, it is a very touristic attraction. In the area of the Golden Triangle, it is possible to see the borders of 3 countries– Thailand, Laos and Myanmar; the lands are separated by the Mekong and Ruak rivers. The Mekong river is particularly important as it flows between many countries. Until recently, the area was famous for the opium production and distribution.
Standing at one of the tips of the Mekong River and looking at the other two countries, I imagined all the stories happening behind those borders looking so close, but at same time so far. We stayed for the sunset and we grabbed a beer.
It was a romantic scenery for these 4 backpackers traveling outside of their own borders.
We took the motorcycles and continued driving until the next town to find an accommodation and perhaps a piece of culture that was transformed in a touristic attraction. After the Golden Triangle, we aimed to visit Phu Chi Fa — a mountain area elevated about 1500 m — known by a magical sunrise every morning. Backpackers are addicted to sunsets and sunrises; it is a common topic of discussion:
“The best sunrise ever is in Bagan, Myanmar”
“One time I made a super hard hike in Mount Bromo Indonesia during the night to see the sunrise then the sky was cloudy”
“No way, I prefer the sunrises and sunsets in South America. The sunrise in São Pedro de Atacama is absolutely the best”…
We arrived late at the town of Phu Chi Fa and found a very cozy restaurant, quite spacious, nice owners but empty.
Five minutes after our order, two backpackers arrived for dinner. Mathieu asked, “where are you from?” and they immediately guessed Mathieu was from France and so were they.
There are French everywhere. I found French people in the most remote places I visited. If you do a trek you will always have at least one French in the group. They love to walk. I do not know where they go, but they go.
Jojo from Northeast and Brice from South of France were doing the same loop as us. They have met already in Thailand and decided to travel together. Jojo, like me, Pierre and Mathieu also quitted his corporate job to travel long time, Brice was on a 2 months trip to have “time to think about his future”. Both had a great energy and were undoubtedly nice people. The connection created among the 6 of us was immediate and we truly got along. As of that dinner on we started traveling together until we all split.
The following day, the plan was to meet all of us at 5 am to see the sunrise. Mathieu and I wanted to pitch the tent, so everyone slept in different accommodations. Jojo and Brice would pick us up on the way since we pitched the tent close to the sunrise viewpoint. The problem was that once again, Mathieu and I spoke until 4am so when they knocked on our tent…we snoozed. Still we met them all on time to watch the sun appearing behind the mist.
Mathieu and I did the small hike up until the viewpoint by ourselves
From the top you can see other mountains peaks coated in a fresh mist, the glowing light slowly emerging behind the horizon and the sky brightening up softly until the sun is finally up.
The morning soft light warmed up the haze and revealed the valleys, the villages of Laos and the always present Mekong River.
Everyone remained silent to keep the mystical moment in their memories (not just us, but also the other tourists).
On the way down, we stopped under a tree to rest and talk. That talk was special as we talked about love, not about ours, but about the love among people. About one hour later we resumed the walk.
We came back to the motorcycles and hit the road again. The day was so hot, so we did a few stops to refresh ourselves and eat ice creams. Despite the heat, everyone was in a good mood. Our next destination was to be back in Chiang Rai.
We just not had fun together, but also interesting discussions. We truly had a good connection. Specially with Jojo which is still part of our lives today.
Two months later, I was doing a walk in a natural park in Cambodia and bumped into Jojo really in the middle of nowhere. Then three months later, me and Mathieu met Jojo in Indonesia since we were crossing islands and happened, we were in the same harbor at the same time. Recently we met Jojo in Strasbourg, France. Pierre met him recently in the Pyrenees, France.
Returning to Chiang Rai meant the end of our motorcycle loop. That also meant it was the end of my time with Mathieu and his year’s trip. Madalena and I already had flight tickets to do volunteering in Northeast of Thailand after the loop.
So that was really the end. At least for now.
Mathieu left home in July 2016. He quit his job and booked one-way ticket Paris — México. He rented a car and started traveling by himself, hoping that having a car would help him to make some friends. Pierre, his brother, also started traveling in January 2016 but heading East: Australia.
By January 2017, Mathieu and Pierre met in Tasmania, Australia to travel in a van together, before going to Myanmar and Thailand.
When Mathieu and I met, it was only two weeks before his flight back to Paris for a short period. Then the plan was to go to Australia to open a bakery with his best friend.
Mathieu back in France and me starting the trip I have dreamt all my life.
What about now? What will happen to us?
Brave and determined as always, Mathieu suggested:
“I don’t know yet what we have, but I am willing to find out. If you want, we can travel together.
If we get along, we will continue traveling together; If we aren’t meant to be with each other then I go to Australia to open the bakery
Now I need to go back to France to see my family and save money to travel again.”
And there it was.
We said goodbye at the bus station of Chiang Rai not knowing when we would meet again.
It was a beautiful goodbye. Full of passion, caring and hope for a future yet to come.
We decided to be apart to let the emotions sink in and then decide when he would book a flight back to Asia to travel with me (of course this idea was 100% coming from the rational Patricia).
