It’s been one whole 30 days since we arrive in Thailand.  Yes, we have survived one month in Chiang Mai! It has simultaneously passed by slowly and quickly, but the novelty of waking up in a different country with no real obligations and only time on our side has not yet worn off. It hasn’t hit us yet that this is our new home. In fact, it simply feels like we’ve been enjoying a long (er, very long) weekend. Most days we find ourselves taking it easy, doing a bit of exploring around the city, grabbing a bite to eat from one of the many street vendors, or going to the store to supplement our vagabond belongings. And no, it does not feel like how a vacation would feel, but everything is still low key, slow, and stress free.

We are adjusting well and are happy to have settled into a townhouse and to have established a bit of a schedule. We are slowly but surely making our partially furnished townhouse into more of a home. I (Angela) spend several days a week in a class to earn my TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) so that I may be better qualified and prepared at finding a job when school starts up near the end of May. The cost of living is dramatically less here in Chiang Mai than it is the States, and we are happy knowing that we are spending so much less just to live, while simultaneously enjoying our lives away from a computer desk. We are gradually getting better and better at budgeting, but we still need to find that happy balance of when we should and should not spend money. We are learning not to get sucked into shopping Big C and Tesco (Super Walmart equivalents in almost every sense minus the people of Walmart!  From what we hear, typically after one month in Chiang Mai things start to level out a bit. We haven’t met as many expats as we had thought we would have by now. Yes, there have been a handful, and it was wonderful to have new company, but we have yet to find our own niche in the expat community. I suppose time will help with that.

Verdict After One Month in Chiang Mai

After one month in Chiang Mai we can say that we have absolutely no regrets, and that we eagerly look forward to what the next few months have in store for us!