On July 12, 2017, I put my big girl pants on and boarded a plane to Chiang Mai, Thailand. I was so excited to venture across the world all by myself on a magical journey to volunteer at Elephant Nature Park (ENP). Prior to the trip, my insides were dancing a fancy jig, but my mother was extremely concerned about her post-surgical daughter going alone to South-East Asia during their rainy season. I assured her that I had no intention of sloshing around Thailand in my best Christian Louboutin shoes while attempting to hug and kiss every elephant in an underdeveloped, muddy hillside village. I am not sure if that made her feel better or worse, but I thought if the elephants can survive the Thailand rainy season then I could, too.

I booked a room in Chiang Mai near the city center for a few nights prior to volunteering with the elephants. I wanted to see the sights, visit temples, shop at the night market, and attempt to eat food in a foreign country without getting violently ill before taking a long bus ride to ENP. At the airport, I was assisted by an English-speaking woman who helped me board a shuttle to my hotel. The Thai speaking shuttle driver looked over the print out material that I had handed him with my hotel information, and the woman assured me that he knew the destination of my location.

After less than a 20-minute shuttle ride, the driver stopped on a quiet, narrow street. I had noticed there were rows and rows of long alleyways running perpendicular to the street we were driving on. In his best English sign language, he started looking at me then looking down one of the alleys while using a jerking motion with his neck in an effort to point with his forehead. He made that motion several times like a pecking hen. From what I was gathering, he wanted me to get out of the shuttle and walk the rest of the way to my hotel. If I was driving, that shuttle would most definitely fit through the narrow alleyway, but I was not willing to risk taking over the wheel. Eventually, I had to acknowledge what he was doing in fear he would accidentally smack his head on the driver side window. Hand motions would have been sufficient, but there was no way of communicating that to him without speaking loudly while over-enunciating each of my words in English as if that would help him understand me better.

I exited the shuttle with my luggage and started rolling my bags down a heavily cracked, pothole-filled, rocky side-street. I had no idea where the hell I was going, and it was not the most welcoming alleyway. There was not a hotel in site, no legible signs, nor an open gate. It was early in the day, but it was also very desolate. As I kept walking, I noticed more and more alleys off of alleys, and I was trekking quite a distance with this feeling of getting nowhere near my hotel.

After passing many alleys, I did see a woman with a food cart who was cooking and selling meat-on-a-stick. At first, I thought she was a mirage, or a figment of my imagination. Why would a woman be in an alley, off an alley, off an alley selling cooked skewers of I don’t know what, and who would be buying her impaled carcasses? No one was around….not one other person. As I was walking by her, we shared a smile and a friendly nod. I was looking as touristy as a tourist could be, off-roading my large suitcase and carry-on bag down a desolate alley.

I made it down the road about 50 yards before I heard the woman yelling. I turned around and saw she was waving for me to come back towards her. I started mentally preparing how I was going to tell this lady in my best Thai sign language that I was a vegan.

As I got closer, she began pointing her tongs towards a tall brick wall with a closed iron gate door. I continued strolling closer to her while ignoring her hand gestures. She walked out from behind her cart while doing her best interpretation of an aviation ground crew member using orange batons to guide a plane. I had no intention of walking in someone’s backyard or into a potential hell-hole. I remember getting nervous wondering if maybe she was part of a human trafficking operation abducting foreign women. For a split second I thought I might have to defend myself and knock out a 4’8” woman weighing somewhere around 90lbs. Once adjacent to each other, she gently took my arm, and with a big, bright smile she guided me to the iron gate while motioning for me to go inside.

I took a deep breath and turned the door knob unsure if it was time that I meet my maker. Once past the threshold, the imaginary carpet rolled out where I was greeted by the welcome wagon. I walked into a hidden gem with a koi pond, trickling waterfall, natural pool, Bohemian restaurant, comfortable room, and beautiful view of a temple. I was just where I was supposed to be, in paradise at Green Tiger Vegetarian Hotel, Chiang Mai, Thailand.