Beware of a fast-flowing mountain stream !!!

Chiang Mai lies in the north of Thailand, a small university town founded in the late 13th century as the capital of the kingdom of Lan Na, staying that way for a few hundred years. But I don't know much about that, as my knowledge (as unfortunately usual, I reluctantly admit) comes mostly from a cursory glance at the wikipedia page. Normally, my research is a bit more in depth, but these days as my travel is coming to a close I've gotten a bit lazy. And, hey: maybe the lack of context is helpful. For shouldn't the beauty of an art work come completely from the conversation its existence has with the viewer? And what greater art work isthere than an entire city and hundreds of years of history and culture? is the only lame excuse I can come up with. And there are so many more engaging things to read and do than just getting a basic grasp of your surroundings.

The Old City is a perfect square of land surrounded by a moat with several bridges and crossings, elegant gates and falling down stone walls, guarding an interior that is… basically the same as the exterior? These days, Chiang Mai is a bit of a haven for backpackers in the north of Thailand, so there is much that caters to tourists: scooter rental shops, travel agencies, adventure companies and cafes abound. And then there is the usual city stuff: markets and malls, restaurants and grocery stores. And then, interspersed throughout is the occasional ancient and beautiful temple, surrounded by statues of the Buddha, perhaps as a baby, perhaps the Smiling Buddha or any of a variety of alternatives. Also: magnificent statues of dragons and lions and elephants and all manner of other creatures: the zoology astounds. And the malls and the cafes and temples, I found them outside of the Old City and I found them within with little noticeable difference other than that those temples within were a trifle more magnificent, a trifle older than those I found outside (where, I might as well add, I was staying, a five minute walk from the Phae Gate at a hostel boasting three chihuahua, one of which wore a dress).

But I've seen a lot of temples in the last few months, and I've seen a lot of cities, and so I must say I somewhat slacked on the whole touristy things and gave a pretty cursory look over the city to match my previous research. So the first day I spent wandering around aimlessly, within the Old City and without. I stepped into a few temples and temple complexes and did my appropriate oohing and ahhing, but I also ended up walking out to the west, where the city ends and the Doi Suthep-Pui National Park begins, and found a waterfall by the side of which I sat and read and absentmindedly watched butterflies (I have to mention, there was a quite gorgeous variety, of butterflies; I particularly liked one shaped somewhat like an airplane with large front wings in a fetching black dress with neon pink spots and leggings). That's where I found the sign that makes the title of this post; I have to say, I found the signage of Thailand in general quite delightful.

The second day, I biked instead of walking. The bike that I hired was cheap: ‎50‎฿ (or about $1.50) for 24 hours, as opposed to the ‎250‎฿ I payed in Bangkok. It was of course the wrong size, one-speed, came with a too-large cheap motorcycle helmet that seemed to offer almost no protection, had a broken bell and was obnoxiously pink, but: it was cheap! And when you peddled, it went forward, and the brakes even seemed somewhat effective, so all in all I was satisfied. I peddled around somewhat aimlessly, but eventually found myself outside of the city again by some 10 kilometers, sitting by the side of a large reservoir surrounded by mountains. I had a picnic of brie and crackers, as the previous day I had found an entire section of a grocery store devoted to cheese and was very excited. The brie was unfortunately somewhat unfortunate, but still a nice respite from the not-having-real-cheese condition that I have been enduring for the majority of the last several months. The sky was blue and the grass was green and I sat and read by the lake, eating way too much brie and crackers as stray dogs walked by, jealous.

On the third day, I scootered. For the first time since Goa. But see, it was quite tempting: it was cheap, and I wanted to be out in the Wilds, away from the city. So I rented a scooter, $6 for 24 hours andan additional $3 for gas (although I lost a bit more than that when I couldn't figure out how tooperate one of the pumps, whose instructions were entirely in Thai but it was the only pump I had passed in the previous 45 minutes and I was almost at empty). And I rode, and I didn't fall. I found another waterfall to the north of the city, a so-called “sticky waterfall:” Bua Tong. The waterfalls run over rocks that are of a slightly spongy and pock-marked texture, where no algae adheres. The weird thing is: the rocks are really grippy. A lot of friction going on there. So you can just walk up and/or down them! In my bare feet, walking up the incline with water running between my toes, it felt almost easier than it would have been to walk without slipping on a dry rock at that angle. It was strange! And the park around the Bua Tong was also quite nice, although everyone eelse seemed to be content to just walk up and/or down the waterfalls themselves (these people, tourists and locals alike, almost all must have come from Chiang Mai, an hour and a half's drive away, just to do that!). A few hundred meters up from the waterfall was the source, a small, sacred pond, crystal clear like I've never seen before and so blue that it called to mind the Cherenkov radiation I saw, looking into the research reactor at Reed College. And then there were trails accompanied by the most wonderful trail map (with a location marked in the legend as simply “Music and Nature”), spreading out into the jungle that I defensively strode along, wearing my sandals and looking skeptically at the spider webs. From there, I scootered out, enjoying myself on the open roads of northern Thailand, well-paved and smooth, surrounded by green rolling hills and mountains, palm trees and rice paddies. I found my way to the west again and another waterfall, but this one you had to pay to get in so: nope. I found the Queen's botanical garden, but you had to pay to get in, so: nope. And then up into the mountains in roads that weaved back and forth, up and down, soaring around corners and being (relatively) safe but having quite a lot of fun. It was very Vermontesque, other than the palm trees and rice paddies.

My last dinner in Thailand I ended up eating at a Burmese place that was delicious, much better than any of the Burmese food I had had in Burma. I felt slightly guilty about not eating Thai but: its pretty easy to get Thai in the states, while Burmese is hard to locate (I presume). My last meal in Thailand was the next day, in the Bangkok airport, the cheapest place I could find and yet the most expensive meal I had during my week in Thailand: a Big Mac, with a soda and fries by accident. That I did feel guilty about.