Day 3 (6th Jan): Scintillating Gold

“Try to imagine a life without timekeeping. You probably can’t. You know the month, the year, the day of the week. There is a clock on your wall or the dashboard of your car. You have a schedule, a calendar, a time for dinner or a movie. Yet all around you, timekeeping is ignored. Birds are not late. A dog does not check its watch. Deer do not fret over passing birthdays. Man alone measures time. Man alone chimes the hour. And, because of this, man alone suffers a paralyzing fear that no other creature endures. A fear of time running out.”

― Mitch Albom, The Time Keeper

My reflections about today resonated a lot with Mitch Albom’s The Time Keeper.

The past 2 days had been filled with fieldwork, reviews of our findings at night and planning for the next day that today came as a huge breather from the hectic pace of fieldwork. Instead of looking for tourists for our research, we looked more like tourists having fun today (just for today).

We visited Doi Suthep and the Huey Kaew waterfall. Climbing a waterfall was definitely a first and a fun experience that I couldn’t have had in Singapore. We sat at a café in Nimmanhaemin and relaxed.

Wat Phra That Doi Suthep
The gold here contrasted against yesterday’s white 

At the cafe in Nimmanhaemin

How long has it been since I last sat down on the ground? Since I thought of nothing, but my (slightly ragged) breathing, the wind on my face, the rush of the water, the strain of my legs, the rock under my hands? Nothing but just climbing, just moving, just getting higher.

At the top of the waterfall

We took things slow today and as I watched the sun set slowly from the waterfall, I was reminded of the reason some Chinese tourists gave for coming to Chiang Mai; its slow pace of life. And I realised they were right. In Chiang Mai, I never felt time pass as acutely as I did in Singapore, where I had to constantly keep track of the time for things I had planned, things I had to get done.

As people from the city, we simply go through the motions of life and rush to keep up with the endless stream of things we need to get done, the places we have to be. We grew up in a culture that frowns upon inefficiency and wasting time that sometimes, we forget that life isn’t all about our work or our obligations.

 “As mankind grew obsessed with its hours, the sorrow of lost time became a permanent hole in the human heart. People fretted over missed chances, over inefficient days; they worried constantly about how long they would live, because counting life’s moments had led, inevitably, to counting them down. Soon, in every nation and in every language, time became the most precious commodity.”

― Mitch Albom, The Time Keeper

Today, I realised how much this quote was true for me. Losing time was a constant worry and guilt that gnawed at me, as I kept thinking about what I could have done, what I should have done. Today was an important reminder to myself that taking a break and giving myself time for fun and rest isn’t always a bad thing.

It’s hard to find such serenity in Singapore, and I’m glad we got some time today to relax, have fun and experience nature as I had hoped to in my pre-trip reflections.

Time waits for no one, but maybe sometimes it is okay for us to just let time go.

Michelle Neoh