We did Bangkok for three nights and then ferried out to Koh Yao Noi for the rest, and at the end of the third Bangkok day Nat from the studio met us at our hotel with a hand-written list of restaurants she had vetted that week. The trip ran on those notes. She also moved our island ferry up by a day when the wind forecast turned. We did not feel routed. We felt accompanied.

Wirat in Chiang Mai paced us slower than I would have planned for myself. Two nights at a teak lodge outside the city; a half-day at an elephant sanctuary whose ethics he had personally verified; one full day in Pai with no agenda. We came home with no photographs we needed to show off, and the most settled sleep we have had on a holiday in years.

Koh Samui for two nights, Koh Pha Ngan for the rest, and at no point did we use the phone for anything other than music. Tibro had quietly arranged a private boat between the islands when the public ferry would have been a three-hour ordeal with our luggage. Small things. Right things.