A man climbed onto the baht bus today who could have walked straight out of the early chapters of Hermann Hesse’s Siddhartha – the years when Siddhartha leaves his comfortable life with his father, the Brahmin, to join the Samanas[1], the wandering ascetics who strip existence down to hunger, silence, and sheer will. This was long before the temptations, glitter and intoxications of town life[2], long before his encounter with the Buddha[3], long before he discovers that the hardest part of a spiritual journey often comes after the ideals have fallen away.

He wasn’t a monk. His pale-purple robes were immaculate – crisp, freshly laundered, and carefully kept. Beneath them, a bright white undershirt lay perfectly clean, almost formal in its simplicity. It was only the small purple bag resting across his lap that showed the marks of time: faded, stained, and frayed, its printed lettering from an old temple ceremony half-worn away.
A topknot pinned in place, script tattoos climbing his neck and hands, and a long staff capped at both ends with crystal bulbs completed the picture – not of neglect, but of someone who presents the life he has chosen with deliberate discipline.

Most tourists would have seen only an eccentric figure sharing their ride. But for me, something in him struck a deeper chord.

I first read Siddhartha when I was young, when the idea of abandoning everything – possessions, ambitions, expectations – carried a certain romantic allure. But the book has only grown heavier with age. Hesse understood the full arc: Siddhartha’s shift from punishing asceticism to its opposite extreme – the seductions of town life, comfort, status, and the slow drift into sensuality… and then the moment of self-recognition, sharp enough to cut through every illusion he had gathered. The sudden departure. The collapse. And afterwards, the quieter journey: the ferryman[4], the slow apprenticeship to the river[5], the failed attempts at fatherhood, the inconsolable despair when his son ran away[6], and eventually reconciliation with himself once all the noise had fallen away. Enlightenment.

And perhaps what stayed with me most, as I watched the man on the bus, was the reminder that we never truly stop growing or searching, even when the world assumes we have already arrived. Some paths bend back unexpectedly, some separate, some rejoin later in ways we could never have predicted – and sometimes the agonising distance between people is simply another part of the journey rather than the end of it[7].

The man sat perfectly still, the staff resting across his knees, utterly self-contained. There was no performance in him, no desire to be noticed – just an interior steadiness, as if whatever road he had walked before this one and the road beneath us now shared the same quiet momentum.

The driver didn’t ask him for his fare. Here, that is considered making merit: a small gesture toward someone regarded as living a spiritual life.

But for me, it was also a moment of recognition: a small reminder, arriving without announcement on a calm Hua Hin morning, of the long looping path between confusion and clarity that most of us travel more than once in a lifetime – whether in forests, in cities, or on a rattling baht bus heading down the coast toward the next stop.

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Footnotes

[1] Samanas
The wandering Indian ascetics Siddhartha joins at the beginning of the novel. They practise extreme renunciation, fasting, and meditation.

[2] Town life” period
Siddhartha becomes wealthy and successful, indulging in worldly pleasures. He eventually realises he has lost himself.

[3] Encounter with the Buddha
Siddhartha meets the Buddha but chooses not to join his monastic order, believing he must find truth alone.

[4] The ferryman
A humble man who becomes Siddhartha’s quiet teacher, showing him how to listen and observe without judgement.

[5] The river
The central symbol of the novel – representing balance, unity, impermanence, and the flow of life.

[6] His son
Siddhartha’s attempt to raise his newly-discovered, angry and resentful son ends painfully, deepening his understanding of attachment and loss.

[7] Paths diverging and returning
A gentle echo of the novel’s theme that relationships and lives are not linear – separation does not always mean ending.