In 2016, I scored my dream job at a travel magazine based in Bangkok. I moved there from Sydney with my partner, Leigh, who worked as a photographer and often accompanied me shooting my work assignments.
Leigh and I loved to travel and we were craving adventure. Our Sydney life had become routine and we wanted a change of scenery – an escape from office jobs, to eat our way through Asia and tell stories along the way. Through work, my “offices” ranged from mountain lodges in northern Vietnam to glamping tents in the jungles of Laos or diverse local villages beyond the casinos in Macau.
On top of my day-to-day work, Leigh and I launched a travel blog called Strangertalk, where we published the stories that magazines were not interested in: traditional Thai tattoo artists who weave magic into skin through ink; Japanese kombu makers who shave every piece of seaweed by hand. Our blog led us to incredible adventures and connected us to people who were living unbelievable lives, but apart from our blog readers, we had no one else to talk about them with.
It was hard to make friends in Thailand. I had a few Thai friends from work who I would eat lunch with at the local market during days in my actual office, but it was hard to break the cultural barrier: I was a farang, a foreigner. I was taking Thai lessons but the tones and pronunciation felt like someone was forever playing a cruel trick on me. It was pàk not pák, mâi not mài. Without speaking the same language I could never be in the inner circle.
The expat community was another puzzle I couldn’t figure out. We’d come to Thailand to be immersed in its culture, feast on the streets, travel to far-flung villages. Many of the expats we met had come because their big companies had paid them to; they were on massive salaries, living in penthouses, holidaying in expensive resorts in Koh Samui and preferred to dine at fancy French restaurants than eat Thai food. They were all lovely, and I am grateful for the time I did spend with them, but when it came down to it, they just weren’t our people.
Meanwhile back home, my best friends were getting married, breaking up, having babies, moving cities – and I was missing all of it. We organised video calls as much as we could, but it was hard to pack a month’s worth of life into a 50-minute pixelated chat.
Most of my friends saw my weeks unfold via Instagram and felt like they knew what I was up to. “You look like you’re having the best time,” they would say. “You’re so adventurous.” But social media, as we know, does not represent reality. Of course we didn’t post about our weekends spent at home watching reruns of The Office, or traipsing around soulless shopping malls just to escape Bangkok’s blazing heat.
After three years, Leigh and I realised we were lonely. Even though we had each other, we needed the benefits of a well-rounded friendship group. People who could offer a different perspective. People who could share their own dramas. People who could understand ours.
We wanted to share our colourful life in Bangkok: wading through flooded streets during rainy season, catching river boats down ancient canals and spotting monitor lizards in the water along the way, the husband-and-wife pork noodle vendors where we ate lunch almost every day.
And I was missing all the small things that knit you together with your friends: nights drinking wine and complaining about boyfriends, watching dumb romcoms on the couch with a bag of Doritos, group feasts over a lazy Susan at our favourite Chinese restaurant. Of course, my friends were still doing this, and I had a bad case of Fomo.
As we reached the three-year mark in Bangkok, we made the decision to pack our things, plus our newly adopted Siamese street cat, and move back to Sydney. I recalled a quote from one of my favourite movies, Into the Wild. The main character, who heads into the Alaskan wilderness in search of freedom and adventure, comes to the conclusion that happiness is only real when shared.
Leigh and I had so many happy times travelling throughout Asia, and I don’t regret a day of it. But like the tree falling in a forest when no one is around to hear it, does it even count if your friends aren’t there to share it with you?
