Looking for Quiet in India, Thailand and Vietnam
The same calm that heals one person can leave another restless.
Picture a couple named Roland and Mei, who have spent their working lives in busy offices. They want a place where mornings are slow and nobody needs anything from them by nine. They look at Asia and find that "quiet" means several things.
I read these stories as one long question: how much of other people do you want around you?
Three kinds of calm
India. One story is about a couple who keep apart from the crowd of other foreigners. They are not unfriendly. They simply like to live their own way, with their own routine. I would call it aloof, though the word sounds colder than the story feels. For some people, calm comes from choosing not to join the usual social circle.
Thailand. Two different ideas of calm appear here. In one, people weighed where to grow old and moved from a busy coastal island to a village. Their reason was independence, and a slower pace that fit them. In the other, an older man in a resort area has made peace with a plain arrangement in his life. He is resigned, but he is not unhappy. I take that as a reminder that calm can be a decision to stop wanting more.
Vietnam. A traveler spends a quiet month in a seaside town where, in their words, nothing happens. That is the point. Mornings, walks, a market, the sea. For people past a certain age, I think "nothing happens" can be very good news, or it can be unbearable, depending on the person.
| Place | What calm looked like | What it asked of people |
|---|---|---|
| India | Keeping apart from the foreign scene | Comfort with having few friends nearby |
| Thailand | A village, or a settled arrangement | Independence, and acceptance |
| Vietnam | A seaside month with little to do | A taste for slow days |
My reading
Roland might say, "I thought I wanted nothing to happen." Mei would answer, "By day nine, I wanted a conversation."
The same calm that heals one person can leave another restless. What stands out to me is that nobody in these stories was wrong. They simply knew, or learned, their own measure.
I would test the quiet before committing to it. A month is a fair length of time to hear yourself think.
You could…
- Spend a month in a place where little happens, and note the day you get restless.
- Compare a village with a resort town for the same pace of life.
- Decide how many friends you need within walking distance.
- Keep a short list of what a good, quiet day looks like to you.
What does a calm day look like for you, and who is in it?
Tell us in the comments