Buy My Life

There I was. Four days of traveling – Sofia-Istanbul, Istanbul-Doha, Doha-Bangkok, Bangkok-Krabi, Krabi-Ton Sai – by cars, trains, buses, planes, tuk-tuks and a boat. Just to get here – on this tiny stretch of sand, surrounded by huge limestone cliffs. There was the sea with the islands, and the climbers, hanging on the beach. There were the bars, playing Jack Johnson, and the sun, just about to set behind the horizon. Long-tail boats roaring. Monkey screaming. Gentle wind blowing. Me, just staying silent on the beach. Looking around, not being able to believe.
There it was - this place. But it wasn't the stunning nature, nor the first-class climbing. It was something about the place, that was calling people to come back, year after year. Not just for traveling, or living the time of their life. It was the life itself – happening so easy. Not just a place far away from home – but the home you've always dreamed of. And then, the people. That fat, pink-skinned suitcase-traveling type of people – you won't see lots of them. And if any, they'd be gone pretty soon. But the people that stayed – people coming back every year – these were people worth knowing. People with stories. People with presence. People sharing that moment of time and space – like it was the only piece of time and space that was ever going to be.
I didn't know that yet – that first time when I got off the long-tail boat on the beach – but it was a place that would change my life completely. And I would become one of these people – coming back year after year, flying the whole world just to spent some time at that same place. Why do you go back, when you have the whole world waiting? Four years later, and I still didn't have the answer.
All those other places – left unseen, unknown, unexperienced. But I just wanted to go back. Back to the life worth living every second. Back to hours doing nothing but being thankful for existing. Back to the place, where rice, water and sun is all you need. But if you add a beer and a pleasant conversation – well, easy to confuse with paradise. And it seems like a dream come true at first. But then comes the challenge – paradise, like everything else, gets boring. It's always the same - that perfect place. And we tend to forget those first moments of amusement but quickly fall into a routine. Same place, same people, same sunsets, same days of nothing-happening slowly turning into nights of not-remembering.
Same same. But different. And at the end, it's just you.
My biggest adventure of all wasn't traveling unknown places, meeting different people or dealing difficult decisions. Because – of course it was true – it wasn't where you go. It was being me. Fulfilled. Satisfied. Excited. Amused. Keeping that perspective all the time. And sharing with people. For people – they matter.