Walking under the glorious autumn sun of Chiang Mai(30°C), I find myself jumping through the sidewalk cracks, making sure to not accidentally run into other people’s arms, or into the meat skewer tables of the street vendors, or into the brown water puddles or into scooters, bikes, tuk-tuks etc.

Basically here you can’t walk and look at your phone, as I do in Berlin, or you wouldn’t get home safe; when you walk you concentrate on your walk.

The traffic is incredible, it is an infinite flow of vehicles and humans in every direction. The air is definitely not clean. Cars behave like they are tuk-tuks and tuk-tuks drive like they are Mercedes. Everything and everyone tries to get their own space, in this crowded place that is Asia.

And yet, I feel no rush, no urge to be anywhere, I can keep my own pace and like me everyone else. No one pushes, no one makes passive-aggressive faces, no one swears at each other even in these massive traffic jams. Actually I see people keeping their cool ALL THE TIME. And while I was elaborating on this thought, it hit me: they don’t honk their horns! No one honks to make you go faster or to get you out of their way.

The flow might be continuous, but no one is pushing.