The Story

This is my world. This is my blog. This is my story.

Twelve months after meeting this beautiful purple dressed butterfly, I found myself on a flight heading towards Bangkok. It’s important to note that this was a ONEWAY FLIGHT!!!! I can remember sitting on the plane and pondering what the hell was I doing.

I guess the same reason I booked flights to Thailand during my Easter break from my final year of Psychology degree – I was influenced and inspired by my girlfriend. From the moment I met her, the following twelve months was the most amazing months of my life. We had an instant connection. We became friends. We became best friends quickly intertwining ourselves in passion. We inevitably fell in love.

After graduating we both were having no joy at finding a suitable job, so an idea of moving to Thailand and giving some English teaching a go gets floatred around. This idea turned real.  She flew first and in a hazy blur, I soon found myself arriving in Chiang Mai. Not realising at the time, but it was from this point my life turned a significant and unforgettable corner.

Little did I know, but the next day was planned with a 130km motorbike trek through the thick mountains of Northern Thailand to a small bohemian town known as Pai. Despite my reservations of having never ridden bike before, let alone in Chiang Mai traffic and through countless mountains, it happened. I was told quite profoundly that,

“if I never try, I will never know”.

From this moment on and for the next two years our lives were filled with countless adventures, both within Southeast Asia and our own worlds. Yes, we had our fair share of tension, but we also had something that outweighed all of of the usual tension of a young couple; the road trips, the SCUBA diving, the VISA runs, the dancing, the Thai festivals, the reggae and the stupidly long bus journeys to the south of Thailand and the surrounding countries. Although we were working and earning, our lives turned into one mahoosive holiday, with several sub-holidays thrown in.

Slowly, but surely, it was inevitable one of us was going to get itchy feet and it was time to experience somewhere new.

Where?

What better place than India.  There was no plan apart from reading Shantaram, buying the Lonely Planet and visiting the north, piece by piece. We booked cheap cheap flights and flew Bangkok to Kolkatta with AirAsia. The first three weeks in India saw us visit Kolkatta, followed by Darjeeling. Here, we stayed a week drinking tea above the clouds before deciding to move to the states of Assam and Meghalaya, the unvisited Northeast – despite being warned by some paranoid tourists that we run the risk of kidnapping and riots.

We ended up in Cherrapunjee (or more locally named, Sohra). A place where the clouds come home and the rains pound the earth. It was statistically the most rained on part of this earth. The landscape was filled with waterfalls, 3000ft deep valleys, clouds, cliffs, rivers, insects the size of our hands and the most beautiful butterflies. This place was a million miles away from any other.

It was the most beautiful place we had both ever seen. EVER.

Then, like everything in this life, things inevitably had to come to an end. Three weeks after leaving Thailand and at the end of June 2011, our trip came to a sudden end. We were both involved in a river accident. This left me with a shattered heart and Mother Nature with a wandering angel she wished to keep for herself. So while Krissi was off on her new wanders, I returned to the UK to say a few “Hi’s” and “Goodbye’s”. Not knowing at the time, but I had returned to the UK with one invaluable souvenir, the gift of life. A life that was inspired by Krissi. A life that was and will be inspired in ways that will live with me forever. A life that will forever be inspired by the simple words of

“never try, never know”.

I very quickly realised mortgages, careers, the UK and the normal life wasn’t for me, so I was itching to get back to Asia. There was no better place than Chiang Mai for me to start realising, adjusting and adapting to life without my beautiful morpho.

This journey life had forcefully embarked me upon is going to take a while. However, I am now working, roadtripping and slowly, but surely, beginning to live and love life the way Krissi not only did, but inspired me and others to do.