BOLT in Chiang Mai: Stay or Go?

Kathy and I love Chiang Mai! It’s affordable, the Thai people are wonderful and welcoming, the food is delicious and we’ve found a wonderful community of POC ex pats. However, there are some challenges to living here full time as ex pats.

We’ve been talking a lot about those challenges lately and whether we should stay or go. We’ve decided to leave for a few months. Here are two main reasons why.

Burning Season

Every year for the months of February through April the air quality in Chiang Mai is some of the worst in the world. I’ve heard it compared to smoking two packs of cigarettes a day! My understanding is that this is due to the traditional practice of crop burning. I believe it is also caused by the amount of cars on the road and by industrial farming practices. In any event, the air is already becoming bad. It’s January 12 and today’s reading was already”unhealthy”.

Travel!

Chiang Mai kind of snagged us. We love it so much and got really comfortable here. But our intention is to travel the world. We’ve decided we’ve been here long enough (this time) and we are excited to be embarking on some more adventures. We’ll be in Vietnam in early February and who knows where we will end up after that. Suggestions? Follow us to see.