Day 100!! Today marks 100 days of solo traveling… pretty crazy. I’ve already met so many amazing people and experienced numerous amazing places in these first 100 days. Here’s to many more days and many more amazing places and people to come!

Here’s todays schedule:

5.30-6.00 | Self-Meditation

6.00-6.20 | Morning Chanting

6.30-7.30 | Join the alms/Kitchen help

7.30-8.30 | Breakfast

8.30-9.30 | Free Time

9.30-11.00 | Meditation – Closing

11.30-12.30 | Lunch

13.00+ | Departure

Today was the earliest I had to wake up for the retreat. My alarm went off at 5am and I took my time getting up. I was a bit groggy but with how thin the mattresses were, I wasn’t getting sucked into staying in bed.

I got to self meditation just before 5:30am and plopped myself down in the front since I was one of the first ones there. This has happened a lot during this retreat, I haven’t intended to be up and front at almost every session. But because I arrived earlier than most, I was kind of forced to the front (which I didn’t mind).

The self meditation was a very pleasant way to start my day. We meditated for around 40 minutes, but I stopped mine around 30 minutes since it felt like all I needed. By this point, the head monk had arrived and was joining us in meditation. It was interesting watching him meditate and move around just as much as we did while we meditate.

The head monk followed up the meditation with morning chanting (another form of meditation). We fumbled along as we tried to chant along with him and finished up just in time to walk with the monks for alms.

We split off into two groups and headed into separate parts of town.

Alms is the monk’s daily practice of collecting food from the community. Monks are not allowed (by Buddhism) to cook for themselves. They have to strip their ego and essentially beg from their community.

A bell is run when the monk has arrived near a residence and then the residents come out with their offering, place it in a bowl, and then the monk blesses them.

Some people chose to pour water out while the monk made a different prayer. The monk told us this was a way in Buddhist culture to pass the blessings onto loved ones or people not in our life anymore.

There were some friendly furry friends along the way as well, some very energetic puppies too, which was an added bonus.

The alms was a very wholesome experience. Watching the emotions and happiness that the monks brought to the people was amazing to see and to see so close. The act of begging and relying on the community is an interesting concept, but the community seems to really find value from it!

We even had blue skies for the morning because of the rain from the night before! It cleared all of the smog away.

After the alms it was time for breakfast. It already felt like it was such a long morning… it could’ve been lunch time already for all I knew!

Another night of fasting down, I piled my plate up with chicken fried rice, fruit, vegis, and some delicious banana pancakes.

I went back to my dorm, caught my friend Henry taking a snooze like he was in a sarcophagi and then headed to read on the hammock I found yesterday.

9:15am rolled around and I decided to head to our last session of the retreat. I thought surely I can’t be the first one and sure enough… I was.

This last session started with a meditation guided by the monks Luca and Brandon. After a 20 minute meditation, which felt super short, we heard the stories from both of them on why they became monks.

The 24 year old monk, Brandon, gave his story first. My biggest takeaway from his story was when facing meaningless, find the most meaningful thing and put your life to it. For him, he put a lot of his meaning into a relationship and when that ended he was very lost. This made him dive into meditation further and then slowly became interested in becoming a monk to help deepen his meditation and help teach others.

I ended up asking him if he believed he put too much pressure on himself or meaning in his relationship and if he’d be willing to try his hand at a relationship again if he left the monk-hood. He responded that he did put too much meaning and himself into the relationship and also on the contrary he probably didn’t try hard enough.

He also said if he became a layperson again, he’d try a relationship. Maybe he’ll stay a monk or maybe he’ll feel stagnant and derobe and start a family and his own retreat (which seems to be a common trend for these monks).

Another person asked him what he’d take from monk-hood into a new relationship if he ever left. And he responded that he’d take patience and kindness, also his meditation practice. Which I thought we’re all good responses.

As the other monk was telling his story and his Q & A, the head monk came in. After he was done with his story, the head monk passed around a microphone to all of us and asked us for our thoughts on the retreat.

When the mic got to me, I thanked them for creating the space to practice and learn meditation and to meet likeminded people. I did end up only having one critique… and no, it wasn’t the early wake-up’s or fasting after lunch. But I thought there should be more emphasis on the quiet portion or at least a way to put the people wanting a full quiet experience together. But I’ll go to another retreat at some point more geared to that!

The monk then dove into his own story and advice.

He told us he made his retreat as an experiment. He realized, my generation isn’t the biggest fan of religion. So he wanted to create a universal place beneficial for everyone and separate meditation from religion. Make it more inviting to all people. He doesn’t think the world teaches us properly to be good, only how to be smart, make money, be successful, etc. And he wanted to make a space to help foster the teaching of goodness.

After the session, he gave all of us a tiny crystal ball as a thank you and gift for partaking in his retreat. He even remembered my name after I gave my feedback which was very kind of him.

It was finally time for lunch and I piled my plate up again with rice, fried rice, curry, a fried egg, fruits, and vegetables.

After lunch my gaggle of friends that went into this retreat together, took a group picture in our fashionable white clothes and then wandered to the retreats viewpoint area that we hadn’t seen yet.

After taking in the view and chatting with each other on the walk about our experience, we headed back down and packed up to head out. As much as I enjoyed not having to choose what I wore everyday… I was ready to get out of these dirty clothes!

We piled into a van that took us down the 1km road we had walked down just three days prior. And then… we waited on the side of the road. Hoping that the van we booked actually stopped at the Pa Pae bus stop.

The busses were taking their sweet time. A few even passed us making us nervous that they were ours and they didn’t see us. But almost 30 minutes of waiting later, two vans pulled up and loaded all of us on!

I ended up getting the comfiest seat in the van and enjoyed a van ride full of chatter with my friends. It was partially about the retreat, but mainly about where we wanted to stay when we arrived in Chiang Mai.

We decided on a hostel and arrived at the bus station. Right next to it was a 7/11! So we had to make a pit stop for some toasties before heading to our hostel.

We got a Grab van to our hostel, Chiang Mai Midpoint Activity Hostel. When we arrived, a friendly face was waiting for us… Dan! He had hitchhiked his way from Pai. Apparently the first car he put his thumb up to pulled over and said yes to giving him a ride.

After getting settled and I had a much needed shower… which I actually got stuck in the stall for a bit. Luckily the water temperature loosened the plastic, but I was seriously nervous I was going to be trapped in the bathroom for a while and just decided to take a shower anyways since I was already in there.

We met back up for dinner and walked with a beautiful sunset to a cheap Khao Soi restaurant nearby.

We played some cards, my friends got crepes bigger than their heads, and then we stopped by a very packed jazz bar before I called it a night!

Before I made it home though… I felt a random spurt of water hit me. I was really confused, until my friend told us he saw a kid on the back of a motorbike hit us with a water gun while they rode past. It appeared the songkran festivities had slowly begun! No one was safe from the water fight.

It ended up being a very full day 100! 100 days have passed by in a blink of an eye and have felt like an eternity simultaneously, it’s a pretty cool feeling. The silent retreat was such a cherry on top for the start of my time back in Thailand as well. A truly perfect way to reach day 100!

Now that I’m back in Chiang Mai, I want to do something I haven’t done yet. But mainly I’m excited to see what Songkran in Chiang Mai, allegedly the biggest version of it in Thailand!

I also don’t feel the urge to go crazy and do a ton since I’ll be back here in a few weeks with my cousins! So it’ll probably be another few days of just hanging out and appreciating the slowness.

– Elie