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Upon arriving in Chiang Mai I was ready for some mountain time. Unfortunately, CM is not really a mountain town so much as a mountain city with filthy, albeit stench-less, air. I had relatively lofty expectations that were dead on arrival; which honestly is perfectly fine. I was ready for this sort of expectation implosion during my gap year so It didn’t really bother me.

Our hostel in this area was quite cozy on a side street just outside the hustle of the main road and nearby plenty of good cafes and restaurants. Chiang Mai is a formerly fortified city and the original structure and layout of the fort is easy discernible from any map. A square sits nearly dead center in the city, a bustling road next to a moat marking the edge of the original design.

Interestingly, Chiang Mai is known for its cafe scene, as well as the relative number of vegan restaurants it hosts. Unfortunately, despite the fact that Rachel and I attempt to eat vegan whenever possible, we only noticed this after we had departed. We did, however, find one vegan cafe that was quite excellent and ended up eating there three days in a row.

In terms of activities while in CM, we kind of mellowed out relative to our time in Bangkok. We visited a couple temples which were extraordinarily reminiscent of the temples in Bangkok, and we cafe hopped on the last day just trying to find decent coffee (which we did) as well as decent vegan food (which we also did).

On a couple occasions we got ambitious with our plans. Once we hiked a couple kilometers up a steep hill to a temple on the mountain. Which, as I noted with pleasant surprise, was somewhat more enjoyable than the typical temples we had visited due to it’s relative lack of tourists and proximity to jungle. The day after that hike, Rachel and Wes had signed up for an elephant conservation activity and I decided to rent a scooter to drive it up the mountain in an attempt to find cleaner air and a bit of peace to clear my head with. According to both Rachel and Wes the elephant tour was a smash hit and worth every penny. I obviously cannot speak to that as I was not there. My scooter trip was quite eventful as well; this I can articulate in more precise detail.

I rented the scooter outside the main area of town in an attempt to avoid learning how to drive in the flow of chaos that makes up the main streets. However, as soon as I started riding the thing I got lost and rerouted onto the busiest of all the streets. People on scooters here don’t really acknowledge the rules of the road and thus are predictably unpredictable. The larger vehicles are simply unpredictable and make riding a scooter downright dangerous anywhere near them. After getting lost, I pulled over to check my map and decided to take some back roads in an attempt to get on the proper track up the mountain. Soon after turning onto the first back road that was only somewhat busy, I attempted too sharp a corner and ended up laying down the bike in the middle of an intersection. My adrenaline rushing, I looked around to ensure no vehicles were about to career into me and/or the scooter. Upon, registering that there were not, in fact, any cars behind me I rushed to the scooter to pick it up and speed away from the scene of my chagrin. As I returned to my proper route, I was ushered by a uniformed officer into a small checkpoint for all the scooters. I thought little of it as I had an international drivers permit and thus no need for concern, right? Well I was wrong. My IDP only covered cars and therefore I was not entitled to ride two wheeled vehicles. However, the officer told me if I paid 500 Baht (approx. 15 USD) I could ride the thing for 3 days without issue. Obviously, I had little choice and shelled out the 15 bucks. All this occurred within the first 10 minutes of riding the darn scooter and I was concerned what the next couple hours would bring. Fortunately, I continued into the hills and up the mountain without issue and began to enjoy the flow of the corners and the increasing density of jungle surrounding me. Needless to say, by the time I reached the top I was stoked and my head was feeling much clearer. The air was still smoggy and this obscured the view, but I was happy and returned to the city that afternoon confident on the scooter and with a big grin on my face.

On the penultimate eve of our stay in Chiang Mai, the three of us went to a low-key, non-tourist temple on the fringe of downtown to engage in a monk chat opportunity we had seen advertised somewhere. This was a most excellent decision. We spent two hours just sitting at a table with a Monk of 11 years discussing random things about his culture and ours as well as the history of Buddhism and the proper way of life according to the Buddha. Now Buddhism is not really my cup of tea, because it’s a faith based religion, however, this monk chat was a lot of fun and very interesting.