After decades of misadventure, I decided to make a radical change, pare down my belongings to a single backpack, and walk away from it all. Starting in Japan, I eventually caromed down to rural Thailand – my soul’s home – where I now wander local markets, roadside shops, old storefronts, and forgotten dusty corners with my equally adventurous wife Jit looking for useful things, beautiful oddities, and objects with history still clinging to them.
These pages are field notes from the other side of the fault line.
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Walking Away
by William Snyder Ban Kan Throm, Thailand April 23, 2026 Beyond the checkpoint, I’d settled into a seat along the wall where floor-to-ceiling windows stretched past the coffee shop before I noticed … before the weight of actually being there settled on my chest. Sunrise dancing off the tarmac. A faint smell of duty-free perfume.
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The Corner Store
Inside this small border village in southern Isaan, at the far end of the main road, is a gathering place that serves as tavern, drugstore, temple, mercantile, and healer’s shrine. It is also home to a man named Yow. From six in the morning until eight at night, every day of the year, villagers come
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The Night The Village Moved in Circles
April 9, 2026 Ban Kan Throm, Thailand by William Snyder Listening to the familiar sounds of daybreak over coffee, on the elevated covered porch of our stilted village home, I spotted her in the distance. Even from that range I could see the small bag in her left hand as she moved from house to
Essays and ongoing dispatches now live on Substack.
