Forgive me, dear reader, for the glib title of this post. Titles are hard, and for some reason my mind always goes to alliteration. You’ll also have to forgive me if there are a few unnecessary flourishes throughout this one (like the “dear reader” above, eye roll)—I’ve been reading a lot of Sherlock Holmes recently, and I find that whatever I’m reading tends to creep into my writing voice.

Anyway, we’re here to talk about Chiang Mai. Chiang Mai is a lovely city in the north of Thailand, with a perfectly square old city surrounded by a moat and some remnants of ancient walls at its center. The old city is the focus of the tourist action, with more modern sprawl expanding outside it, and the whole thing is surrounded by lush green mountains. My plan was not to have too much of a plan, just to show up, eat lots of good food, partake in the devil’s lettuce (legal in Thailand, in stark contrast to Indonesia), stroll around, and see some national parks. And that’s what I did!

One surprising thing about Chiang Mai is that jazz clubs are something of A Thing there. I had no idea about this, but by pure chance the first place I stayed was right across the moat from one of the better ones. My very first night I was strolling around after dinner and came across a big crowd spilling out onto the sidewalk. I went to see what the fuss was about and found myself captivated by a rollicking jazz band. I’m by no means a jazz aficionado, but watching live was really fun. I found that I could concentrate better on the separate parts the musicians were playing and their impressive improvisation when I could watch them, and the whole atmosphere enhanced the experience. I also got a firsthand appreciation for the term “jazz cigarette”—it truly is a match made in heaven. I ended up coming back five or six times throughout the trip. My opinion of the different bands varied, and I found I wasn’t as into the ones that were more straight rock, but luckily I ended on a high note, seeing my favorite band of the lot on the last night I went.

The quality of the food in Chiang Mai, on the other hand, was no surprise at all. The food in Thailand is generally excellent across the board, with delicious and varied cuisine but also just really tasty fruits and vegetables. On top of that, Chiang Mai and the north of Thailand are famous for their regional cuisine, with Khao Soi, a noodle soup/curry situation (I was too lazy to actually look it up, forgive my blasphemous description Khao Soi purists) as the star attraction. There is also a lot of Chinese influence, and Chinese Thai cuisine can be found everywhere. I gorged myself on Khao Soi, stewed pork leg (!!), roti (!!), fish ball noodle soup, congee, skewers, pad see ewe, fresh fruit smoothies, and of course mango sticky rice. Heavenly. I also took advantage of the highly developed cafe culture and drank lots and lots of coffee.

Chiang Mai (and all of Thailand) is also famous for its Buddhist temples. They are absolutely all over the place, with impressive high roofs, golden buddhas of all sizes, and generally all kinds of colorful and glittery decorations. I wandered into a few but, without meaning any disrespect, if you’re not there to pray they all start to look quite similar after a while.

I had hoped to find some art galleries or museums like I had in Yogyakarta but I didn’t end up having much luck there. So the first week mostly consisted of me packing up my waterproof backpack and just heading out to wander around. The weather confined most of my wandering to the mornings—when the sun was out it was hot hot hot and, since it was rainy season, pretty much every afternoon featured an hour or three of steady rain if not torrential downpour.

My first national park venture was to Doi Suthep, which actually abuts the western edge of the city, just a short ride away perched looming on the back of some poor Thai’s scooter. The main attraction in Doi Suthep is the huge temple complex on top, and as seems to be common enough in Thailand, there’s a road right to the top and the temple is surrounded by a whole neighborhood of restaurants and souvenir vendors. It’s a slightly different national park vibe from what I prefer, but hey, these are the joys of travel and discovery. Luckily Doi Suthep does actually have a hiking trail you can take, climbing up through the woods, called the Monk’s Trail. This was the only real hike I got to do on this trip, and it was an absolute delight! As far as the temple on top, the standout feature for me (besides the views) was the jade buddhas. I hadn’t seen these before and thought they were quite beautiful, with their deep green skin wrapped in shiny gold or silver clothes.

By this point I was ready to hit the road. Northern Thailand is famous for moto tourism—there are a couple of loops that wind through mountains and rice fields which absolutely teem with tourists during the dry season. This, though, was the rainy season, and driving a scooter around in the rain is a lot less fun, not to mention safe, than in the dry. I hemmed and hawed and in the end got some good waterproofing for my bags, made sure my bike had good brakes and tires, and went for it. My destination was Doi Inthanon National Park, about two hours southwest of Chiang Mai, whose claim to fame is Doi Inthanon, the tallest mountain in Thailand.

In spite of the rain the drive was a breeze—the roads in Thailand are in decidedly better shape than in Indonesia (one of several manifestations of the fact that Thailand is noticeably more developed than Indonesia, which I found interesting), which you really feel on a scooter. The plan was to spend a few nights at a cute little place in the national park which I could use as a base of exploration. Unfortunately Doi Inthanon doesn’t really seem to have hikes in the way that I think of them. There are one or two few hour long walks where you have to hire a guide, the most famous of which is closed for the rainy season. The summit is, once again, accessible by road, and this time there is no monk’s trail option, just a short boardwalk loop near the top. This was still cool—it’s a cloud forest up there, and strolling through the fog in a forest covered with moss and lichen is dreamily beautiful. Besides that I also went to check out a few of the many waterfalls in the area, which gave me the chance to scramble around some trails, if briefly.

After my short trip to the summit I took the scooter and just went driving. This immediately made it clear to me why moto touring is such a big thing there. It is, to put it simply, stunning. The roads wind up through jungle covered mountains, with occasional breaks in the cover affording sweeping views across the landscape. You might turn a corner and suddenly see the vista change from dense forest to beautiful fields of rice, corn, and all kinds of other crops I couldn’t name. You can pull over at a little shack on a ridge and pay two bucks to slurp up some noodle soup with a view to infinity, then get back on the road and find yourself plunging down into a valley, with the thermometer climbing crazily to mark your descent. The few hours I spent just driving around, capped by a stop at a market for northern thai pork sausage, chicken skewers, persimmons, and longan, was easily the best part of my trip to the park.

Inspired by the previous day’s driving, I decided to take the very scenic way back to Chiang Mai, looping hugely out of the way and just soaking up the scenery (and the rain). This was a fantastic decision. I also tacked on a last minute visit to another national park (there are bushels of national parks in northern Thailand, all right next to each other, delimited and organized according to a system I cannot begin to fathom), Ob Khan. This park is smaller and much less visited, with the main attraction being a beautiful gorge of multicolored stone reaching some 20+ meters tall at points. Through some combination of the day’s scenic drive, the near-total emptiness of this park, the chance to scramble around some rocks, and the picturesque river winding down from the mountains and through the gorge, this was the happiest I was on the whole trip. Delightful!

The trip wrapped up with an uneventful last week back in the city. I hung out and went to the jazz club with a friend from Amed, and went almost every day to a cafe with an astonishingly beautiful jungle garden, waterfall included. And of course I gorged myself on tasty food.

Since I lugged my camera all the way to Thailand and hadn’t used it a single time, I also decided to take an afternoon strolling around taking Artsy Photos, so you’ll have to indulge me below. The ones with my reflection are an homage to Vivian Maier, whom I cannot recommend highly enough.

And then it was time to head back! I’ve been back in Amed for a week now, picking up my hiking and swimming, and slowly building up the mental energy to actually start getting rid of things and packing up. I have to say, I’m planning to try to get rid of a ton of stuff here before I go, and I could not be more excited. At this point I’ve got probably over 70kg/150lb of luggage spread between two ludicrously large duffel bags and my backpack. I don’t want to go too Fight Club Boy Philosopher here, but when I think about the things I want to do (get around Paris, bounce between different areas of Tenerife, fly all over the US visiting all my loved ones), I can viscerally feel all that Stuff weighing me down. It is going to feel so good to shed some crap.

So there we are. I’ve got two more weeks here in Amed before this chapter comes to a close. The main thing I want to do before I go is to finally climb Mt Agung, the towering volcano that looms over Bali. I just set things up to climb it this weekend, so wish me luck. Besides that it’ll just be a blur of packing and goodbyes and then on to the next stop, a week of catching up with family and stuffing my face in Paris, which I’m very excited for. After that I’ll have 5 weeks in Tenerife to see what I think and then I’ll head back to visit the US and catch up with everyone after two years (!!) away.