Chiang Mai on a Water Fast

By Amara Devi

Chiang Mai on a Water Fast

Christmas Day 2025, Chiang Mai 

It’s Christmas Day 2025. I thought I might miss something: a table, a crowd, a tradition, a sense of  being plugged into the season. I do not. What I feel instead is a calm so complete it feels holy. 

I’ve just turned my phone back on after four weeks of complete silence. I’m on week four of water  fasting, moving slowly through India, Malaysia, Phi Phi and finally settling into the quiet gravity of  Chiang Mai, Northern Thailand. Four weeks without notifications, emails, calls or the low-grade static  of the outside world.  

The phone screen lights up. Messages arrive. Time resumes.  

And I realise something almost immediately: nothing feels urgent any more. 

A City Leaning Toward Connection 

In Chiang Mai, openness is everywhere. The air softens at dusk. Strangers smile without expectation.  Colour seems more saturated, sound more intentional. It feels as though the world itself is leaning  toward connection. 

Chiang Mai’s Buddhist culture does not speak the vocabulary of Kundalini, yet it understands the  territory intimately. Theravāda Buddhism emphasises inner silence, restraint and the Middle Way.  Sahaja Yoga speaks of the central channel, where attention rests in balance rather than oscillation. Different maps, the same destination. 

The Shangri-La hotel became my chosen enclave, a pocket of cultivated calm lacquered with softness,  set against the lucid vibrancy of Northern Thailand. A place where the world could not reach me with  its noise. No phone, no emails, just a suitcase and a laptop (to check the markets, of course). 

Days in Chiang Mai unfolded gently. Mornings began with motorbiking through the mountains.  Afternoons wandering through markets humming with colour and scent: ripe fruit, incense, jasmine,  steam rising from street kitchens. The flower markets mesmerised the senses and tested all my  self-control. 

At night the city shifted. Temples glowed softly against the dark, chants drifted through the air like  something ancient and alive. In the temples, you feel it: the invitation to drop below personality,  narrative, performance. The air itself seems to ask you to speak less. Incense curls upward like a visible  prayer. Gold catches light in a way that feels symbolic and literal at once. Bells. Bare feet. Marble cool  under the soles. Standing above the city, listening to the monks’ chanting ripple outward, it is  impossible not to feel held by something larger than oneself. 

Highlights from Chiang Mai 

• Wat Phra That Doi Suthep: Perched high on Doi Suthep, overlooking the entire city, this  glittering temple is considered essential to any visit to Chiang Mai. 

• Wat Pha Lat: A jungle temple hidden on the way to Doi Suthep. Its moss-covered carvings,  waterfall and serene atmosphere make it ideal for quiet reflection.

• Baan Kang Wat: A tree-shaded arts village of cafés, craft studios and galleries. It felt like an  oasis of creativity and calm amid Chiang Mai’s bustle. The variety of art and architecture is  spectacular. 

• Warorot Market: The city’s largest market, with fresh juice stands and ready-to-eat local  dishes like pad Thai and nam phrik num chilli paste, alongside fresh produce, flowers, clothing  and traditional handicrafts. 

• Elephant Nature Park: Northern Thailand’s first ethical elephant sanctuary, rescuing  elephants from street begging and tourism and giving them a safe home. Seeing these gentle  giants roam freely was a quiet lesson in compassion and absolute cuteness. 

And in between it all - the walking, the wandering, the pauses, there was a quiet recognition: when you  move through the world with an open heart, the world responds in kind. There is a particular kind of  wealth in that exchange. Not accumulation, not excess, but resonance. The feeling of being met, again  and again, by life itself.  

Perhaps that is the real luxury: to move through the world awake, unguarded, open-hearted and deeply,  unmistakably alive within your own vibrations. 

The Art of Subtraction 

Four weeks of water fasting honed my self-discipline, and what many may see as deprivation was  actually an act of deep devotion. This was not about discipline for its own sake. It was about alignment - letting the body and mind re-synchronise without interference. 

Each morning began simply: bentonite clay and psyllium husk stirred into water to pull toxins from the  gut; a colonic, sometimes with coffee or garlic and litres of alkaline hydrogen water throughout the day.  Daily massages supported circulation and release. Gentle gym sessions, a Qi Gong class or hikes  through the hills. Meditation and long visits to temples where time feels optional and stretches in a way  that feels almost forgotten in modern life. 

Without digestion, without distraction, the body speaks honestly. Hunger dissolves. Time stretches.  Attention sharpens. What remains is pure aura. The body, when given space, remembers its own  intelligence. With no digestion to manage, energy reorganises itself. Thoughts become fewer and  clearer. Sensation sharpens. The mind slows enough to let awareness come forward. 

And yes, I’ll admit it: I missed food. On some evenings I craved tofu green curry or simply beans on  toast. I missed the ritual of food, the sensuality, the pleasure. I come from a culture where food is  language, memory, love. But what surprised me most was how little I felt deprived, and how full I felt  without it. Something else had been feeding me: presence, connection, resonance. 

This, I feel, is what we forget: nourishment doesn’t always come in the form we expect. Sometimes  what we crave is not consumption but communion - with ourselves, with a place, with the moment we  are standing in. 

Integration of Awareness & Alignment 

By the time I arrived at week four of a water fast, I was no longer “doing” a cleanse. I was inside a  different order of listening, the kind that makes you realise that most of your life has been lived with too 

many tabs open. Somewhere in this fast, the subtle body stopped whispering and started speaking in  full sentences. It was as if the fast did not only cleanse my body; it cleansed the interface between me  and the world. 

The inner connection and energy I felt were not private; they became magnetic. The kind of light that  offers authenticity, space and healing through wordless presence. 

People became careful in that subtle way that means something in them recognises something in you.  Interactions that normally drift into polite noise became strangely direct and heart-centred. Eye  contact deepened. I understood then that cleansing does not stop at the self. When distortion leaves  you, it leaves the space around you as well, and one emits a power that does not need to announce  itself but is subtly felt by all. 

The more I fasted, the more spaces felt less like places and more like states.  

This journey healed fragmentation - not through talking, explaining or rehashing the past with fresh  language.  

Through presence.  

Through balance.  

Through centre.  

And the most astonishing part is that I did not have to announce any of it. I had no interest in being  understood and was more committed to being aligned. I did not tell people who I am or where I am  from. I did not explain my spiritual interests. I did not perform healing. I stayed private, even when I was  glowing. Still, people saw it. Without words, without context, without the performance of societal  niceties. How beautiful it is to be seen so deeply. 

Homeward 

There is a particular freedom in self-containment. In not needing external noise to validate the  moment. In understanding that presence is the celebration - what an invigorating time to be alive!  

When your inner world is coherent, your outer world responds accordingly. Not dramatically. Subtly.  Consistently. That, perhaps, is the deepest luxury of all. 

It’s time to check out of my hotel now and continue my dolce far niente at home, in the land of pasta  and tiramisù, Italy…Andiamo! 

Amara