I’m far from home. Why exactly am I traveling the world for roughly one year? Let’s see if we can answer that by the end of this blogpost.

On August 1st I landed in Bangkok around dawn, and that’s how this journey began. When I left Norway my circadian rhythm was about as predictable as a coked-up mantis shrimp in zero gravity, and the addition of jetlag did not improve things in the slightest. I holed up in my hotel room near Khao-San Road. (A legendary hedonistic backpacker party-street where many journeys begin, and where terrible decisions are made regularly) I’d spent the nights (which were mornings to me) reading books. There was this charming bookstore nearby that I frequented.

I met my dad again, one of the first days. My dad moved to Bangkok 7 years ago, when he retired from his job as a high profile judge in the Norwegian legal system. We hadn’t spoken for several complicated years, for several equally complicated reasons, but I wanted his counsel and figured it was worth the emotional risk. It was actually quite nice. We discussed corruption, law and traveling. He bought me new shoes (which I desperately needed) and gave me some cash. I also got some solid legal advice which I may or may not ignore entirely. I think he has learned to accept that I’m completely incapable of doing what others want me to do – on the sole basis that they want me to do something – and that the best anyone can hope for is to present a compelling argument and see what happens.

By the end of the first week I was regularly waking up around dawn. Great success! Before arriving here I used to be artificially animated on a semi-daily basis through a gentle dose of dextroamphetamine, for my inattentive ADHD. State sponsored amphetamine is a very enjoyable concept to me. Can’t bring that stuff with me on this trip, though. Very strict rules for drugs in much of Asia, and I’d basically need permission from the king to dabble in stimulants ‘round these parts. Cannabis however, that’s sold everywhere these days. But if you have a normal nicotine vape in your possession? That’s a serious crime. The world is a weird place.

Why am I traveling for a whole year? I’m not sure I have dug up the answer yet. Give me a few more moments. I’m on the train to Ayutthaya, speaking to a local man who’s meeting his son in the same city. Used to be the capital of Thailand before Bangkok, and Bangkok is actually named Krung Thep, which is short for – Krungthepmahanakhon Amonrattanakosin Mahintharayutthaya Mahadilokphop Noppharatratchathaniburirom Udomratchaniwetmahasathan Amonphimanawatansathit Sakkathattiyawitsanukamprasit – which is the longest city name in the world. Translated to English: “City of Angels, Great City of Immortals, Magnificent City of the Nine Gems, Seat of the King, City of Royal Palaces, Home of Gods Incarnate, Erected by Visvakarman at Indra’s Behest”

The lack of dextroamphetamine in my blood makes me want to go on another tangent about who “Indra” is, but no, all I will say is that he has something in common with Zeus, Thor and the OG pre-monotheism edition of Yahweh. Anyways, Ayutthaya, lots of old temples from the past. Used to be the powerful capital of Siam for four centuries, one of the wealthiest cities in the world, before the Burmese sacked the town in 1767, burnt it to the ground and beheaded the Buddha statues that remain beheaded to this day. The roots of a fig tree (not the strangler fig type of fig I wrote about in my “The Gardeness” story) lifted up one of the heads and that’s a famous landmark now. Also, this is where I first met elephants on this journey. Ayutthaya will forever live on in the glorious shadow of its past, a blessing and a curse I don’t think it will ever outgrow.

Next up was MONKEY CITY! As I waited for the incoming train to Lop Buri, my train ticket fell out of my pocket. It was only 13 Thai baht, aka 0.39 USD. When a conductor asked for my ticket, I was able to fish it out of my pocket and present it to him. An attentive stranger had come to my rescue. A woman around my age had seen the ticket slip from my pocket from a distance. She had picked it up and given it to me before I realized what had happened. I thanked her, and she nodded knowingly and gave me a wink. She looked smart, and we could see each other from our seats on the train. I wonder if she saw a fool or a genius where I sat.

The Thais next to me started talking to me, as they often do on trains and buses here. So far I’ve been acting like a shy, skeptical cat, quietly scuttling from place to place, rarely interacting too much with anything at all. Years of Norwegian conditioning, and both situation-specific and general life-exhaustion is the suspected culprit. After all, I’m 31, which is older than the oldest cat currently alive, according to Guinness World Records. Creme Puff, that’s the name of the oldest cat we have ever documented. 38 years and 3 days. Creme Puff must’ve been curdled, lumpy and rancid by the end. Anyways these moments where strangers talk to me without trying to sell me anything, it brings me out of cat mode. I’m an extrovert, I keep forgetting to act like one. I think (I know*) that I’m lonely. But who isn’t, most subscriptions of intimacy and connection these days leave much to be desired. I remember a bartender in Tallinn, Estonia asked me if traveling solo made me feel lonely. It doesn’t, not when you’re always feeling it. Well, not always, there’s conditions that can be met. My point is that I can make the argument that it’s better to be lonely where the sun shines brightly, where the adventures are plenty and where the beer comes cheap in big bottles.

The Thais made me smile. They shared with me a clustered fruit from the south. When I asked for the name of the fruit I heard “rock-cock” which concerned me in ways I cannot express. Asked for the fruit name again, got the same result. Turns out the fruit is called “Long-Kong” and not “Rock-Cock”. It was delicious, they were generous with it, and happy to see me feast. The train Thais said that there’s no monkeys in Lop Buri. …What? MONKEY CITY has no monkeys? This is grave news indeed. I didn’t understand his explanation. Was it a seasonal thing or something permanent?

After many years of being terrorized by the local marauding gangs of long-tailed macaques – with no sign of the monkey madness slowing down – the government took action. Tranquilize and relocate. Thousands of them gone, only a few hundred remain. Since the numbers now favor the humans and not them, the macaques now embody what seems like a strange sense of humility. The age of humans living behind cages while their food carts are violently raided are over. The age of Monkey is over. The age of Man has begun. But on the other hand, Lop Buri is only known for the Monkey Madness. Without the monkeys roaming free, tourists aren’t showing up the way they used to. And so this ancient city is struggling too, between two cruel fates. I wonder what Lop Buri will be like 20 years from now. Have the monkeys returned? Has it fallen to poverty? Has it found a new path toward the future?

I’m still in Lop Buri. Tomorrow I might visit their zoo, and there I’ll think about all the humans that for decades lived behind steel cages to protect themselves from the curious monkeys that roamed this city and made it their own. My next destination is an island. I’ve got a bungalow waiting for me. Gonna see if I can develop a tan during monsoon season. Can’t wait to get my unlicensed ass back on a moped as well, the roads on this island are a joy to traverse.

So, why am I traveling the world again? Maybe I’m escaping stagnation and other devils by positioning myself where movement, connection and possibility coalesce into something worth finding? Maybe I’m in search of valuable truths, including the fact that a ruthless monkey regime absolutely can be toppled and forever remain a thing of the past. Maybe I’m just lost, and I don’t have anything better to do. Maybe I’m “finding myself” as I walk the same well-trodden paths through Southeast Asia as the digital nomads and young backpackers. The digital gonads who reinvent themselves as “life coaches” at 21, peddling masculinity to insecure men from a laptop in Bali because they read ‘meditations’ and discovered cold showers. And the backpacking hippies with butterfly tattoos on their tits who came to Southeast Asia to escape Western conformity, only to find themselves surrounded by 100,000 other free spirits wearing the same elephant pants. Excuse my cynicism. I do like free spirited hippies more than I convey.

I honestly don’t know what I’m doing. Hoping to figure that out, along with a few other things, in the coming months.