I was basically the only one at the hotel and the entire Chiang Mai was looking like a ghost town.  I've never seen it like this before.  There were quite a lot of young backpackers walking around, many without masks.  I didn't have mine either.  No cases of the virus yet in Chiang Mai but we all know how fast that will change.  

The staff at the hotel were happy to have me or any tourists for that matter and said, "Now is low season".  Well, you don't say.  They were awesome, and it was surreal walking around such a quiet area.  I paid for two nights at first and was going to play this thing by ear.  

The main reason for coming to Chiang Mai was to seek professional life coaching advice face-to-face and run by 4 scenarios on what I should do next.  The way this works is the coach will simply act as a 'mirror', they don't tell you what to do, they just listen and offer professional advice.

Originally I wanted to ask them how to handle the dilemma of finding a new job in Malaysia and effectively abandoning China and basically breaking up with my fiancee.  That was still discussed but I mainly wanted to focus on four options that needed immediate decisions.  Each one would carry risks and there was no one right answer.

- Option #1 go back to Canada on the soonest flights

- Option #2 fly to Malaysia with the new employer

- Option #3 fly back to Shanghai

- Option #4 stay here in Thailand and do nothing 

I quickly got a phone call from my Dad who basically said go for option #1 as of this minute.  Thankfully the phone call was timed right before I went for my life coaching appointment so I could present that as another option

It took about 4 visits while I was still able to manage them to come up with a decision.  All the while things were getting more and more tense.  Checkpoints were being set up all over the streets, and fewer and fewer people were out.  At the life coaching center, there was even a sign on the door saying you're not welcome if you had traveled from China in the past two weeks.  It was quite apparent that things were going to go online very soon and even the staff were making plans to leave.