Up early after a long night of sleeplessness, I ask the manager at my guest house how best to get
myself to the temple in the mountains – Doi Suthep. “Oh! No problem,” she says. “You take songtaew to Doi Suthep. Maybe 40 baht.” Ok! So, off I went, into the street in search of a taxi. But of course that wasn’t the whole truth. Because, as I quickly learned, no one wants to just take one person anywhere in Thailand, let alone 8km up a mountain. If you are just one person, the cost of getting anywhere goes up exponentially. So, after taking a taxi truck to one bus stop and waiting inside another taxi truck for it to gather enough people to make it worth the driver’s while to take me up the mountain, I decided enough was enough. I waited an hour and was still the *only* person sitting in that truck. I hopped into the first truck that would agree to take me up to the temple for the least painful sum. In the end, I settled for 350 baht (about $12). 
The driver was great. Halfway up the mountain, after stopping to pick up a few other people, he stopped at this lookout point and dragged me from the truck to be sure that I got to see Chiang Mai from one of the highest points in the city. He waited patiently while I snapped some shots of the view and off we went. When we finally arrived at the temple drop-off, we had some more negotiations about getting me further up the mountain – there’s a summer palace and a pseudo hill tribe village further up. It was a no go. For another $20, I could get him to wait for me and then take me down the mountain, but that was absurd. I wanted to go UP not DOWN. So I set off on my own, knowing that I would probably find myself doing a lot of walking that day to get where I wanted to be. 
I made my way into the temple, up many, many stairs. 306 to be precise. At the base of the stairs was a series of tourist shops and food stalls along with a group of women and children all dressed in traditional Hmong clothing. As tourists approached them, the kids would smile and say, in a sweet singsong voice, “Do you want picture? Give me money!” They gathered at the base of the hundreds of steps, some of them scampering off into the jungle with younger brothers and sisters in tow, others playing games and smiling placidly at the passers-by. I watched as a family of very large Germans gathered around these small children and plopped themselves down on the stairs, ready to have the moment documented. Such a surreal image—these pink faced foreigners surrounded by the bronze smiles of children adorned in bold colors and lots of silver.
As I walked up the 306 stairs flanked on either side by dragons, the smell of jasmine pierced the air. The sky was full of high clouds, some dark. It was certain to rain at some point that day, though I hoped not while I was on this particular adventure. I entered the temple and made my way around the back side, towards the
having traveled for as long as I had in I took off my shoes and ascended the stairs. What I was met with was more than I ever could have imagined. Imagine: a square area with a covered walkway on all sides under which sat various shrines and images of the Buddha. On two opposite sides of this square were rooms in which monks were bestowing blessings on visitors. Another side was devoted to offerings—candles, incense and lotus flowers—and a jade Buddha
image. In the center of all of this, a grand golden stupa around which people were walking, offerings in hand. I stopped a tour guide to ask how many times people walk around it. Three she told me. I took my offerings in hand and walked behind a mother and her very reluctant child around that golden stupa three times, watching the mom drag her kid around that thing for the last round. I laid my offerings alongside so many others in front of the jade Buddha and received my blessing not from a monk as they are forbidden contact with women, but from another person whose position at the temple was unclear but no less valuable.The spirit of the place was energetic. There was serenity but there was also the fervor and excitement to be in such a place, a site of such grandeur and sanctity. I spent more time walking around, trying to take as much in as I could. There was just so much. When I felt satisfied, I walked back down the 306 steps and began my
journey to my next destination –the Royal Winter Palace Phu Ping. I was told by the taxi drivers to take the road, my safest option for walking there. The first road sign told me I had 4 km to walk. No far, I thought. Not so bad. The road was quiet. Jungle on either side, the sounds of the creatures who call it home amplified by the stillness in the air. Few cars passed me at all. I had essentially found myself fully in solitude for the first time in so very long. The two hour walk gave me much time to center myself at the beginning of this journey, at the end of my adventures in When I finally arrived at the end of the road I had been traveling and the beginning of a small road to the palace, I was in awe of my surroundings. There were flowers everywhere, flooding the hillsides. I saw these gorgeous dripping flowers that I used to have in my backyard in the Sunset in
I have no idea what they’re called, but they hang like bells from low trees and smell so sweet. But here, in Again, the most impressive aspect of the palace itself was the incredible gardens of flowers occupying every inch of the place. That and the totally Disney-esque experience of being guided from one building to the next by informative badly translated signs and Musak that wafted from speakers hidden under bushes and inside trees. It was so very bizarre. The palace consisted of a variety of formal buildings and walking areas as well as living quarters and all sorts of little cottages everywhere for the extended royal family. It all looked like a little Hummel scene come to life. Or like I had stumbled upon the world where Peter Rabbit and Mr. Toad live and at any moment they might just pop out for tea in the garden. But the pièce de résistance, the pinnacle of this whole experience was the Queen’s fountain, "The Fountain of Celestial Water of People." Built for her
72nd birthday, this “fountain” was a large rectangular pool as big as a soccer pitch with severaoordinated water features – coordinated with the awesome cheesy Thai/Bollywood music. It’s difficult to fully appreciate the musical score without having heard it, but it felt a little like disco meets Fantasia meets 
and then sliding down a muddy hill on my hands and knees to the road below where I found the Giant Bamboo. So very giant. Towering in clumps overhead into the sky. Overall, the palace was a decent experience. Not totally fabulous, but interesting and slightly bizarre. I walked out of the palace in search of a bathroom and found myself walking downhill through a series of vendors. I almost gave up looking when a woman who was walking uphill past me urged me to go all the way down and check out the view. “You won’t be disappointed,” she said. And indeed I wasn’t. The hill dropped off at a series of tiered ledges. No one was around. Just me and the jungle. There were picnic tables and paths in every direction. I jumped on one and followed it down to a hidden shrine buried behind a grove of pine trees. I spent a lot of time inspecting all the details of these tree spirit houses and even discovered a very beautiful, very strange flower growing right out of the ground beneath the thick carpet of pine needles. 
As I walked back up the hill, the sky grew darker, and I had no doubt it was going to pour rain. Though there were dozens of taxi drivers waiting outside the palace, again, no one would take me back down the mountain for less that $15. Just one person. Totally out of luck. Ok, I’ll walk then. Maybe I can get someone to pick me up along the way. Since the sky was threatening to dump, I decided a brisk downhill run was in order. I ran for quite a while, slowing down as the road opened up to an outcropping. At just the moment that the rain started to fall, a songtaew honked and stopped for me. Headed down to the temple, he said he could take me for about $3 at least to the midway point. I’d have more 
options once I got there. So, I climbed into the truck and was startled to see a pretty large group of people in the back. Within minutes we were all chatting and becoming fast friends. The group consisted of a family of three from 
after they returned from their trip. So, we chatted in broken Korean (for me) and had a blast. We spent the next hour walking around in the rain, ringing bells and talking about our various adventures. We took in the view across the valley below, covered in a sea of mist. I felt as though I was floating. We had lost the family in the crowd at the temple, so we decided it was about time to get ourselves down to the taxi to go home. We hadn’t yet cleared the last step off the stairs when the rain started coming down in sheets. Within minutes there was a swift river running down the stairs and into the street below. We huddled under the roof of a small restaurant and then under the archway of
my first trip out with spending cash, I was reserved, wanting to just scope it all out before I started giving in to the rip offs of the market. We made it through a large portion of the market and then I suggested a cup of coffee. I had read about a small coffee shop close to where we had found ourselves. We crossed the street and found the shop. Walking in, I was first hit with the blinding cold of the air conditioning, keeping the shop totally inhospitable to our hot weather attire. And then, I noticed that everyone working in the shop was wearing a very pink polo shirt and was *very* eager to help us, the only customers in the place. I asked for a coffee to go. And what I got was a very small clear plastic cup with a lid with half a cup of coffee in it. I wondered what I would have gotten had I not asked for it to go since we ended up staying anyway. The girls and I enjoyed our drinks and the strange atmosphere, and then we parted ways on the street. They
were tired and done with shopping. I was wired and ready to explore a little more.On the corner opposite the coffee shop was the famous roti corner where a woman stands every night making the most delicious rotis with honey and butter in the most visually mesmerizing pattern of hand motions I’ve ever witnessed. With a carton of fresh orange juice, I parked myself on a set of stairs to enjoy the treat and watch the people go by. Not long after I sat down, a pretty large group of kids came running up, one of them holding some kid of frame in his hands. I realized almost immediately that they were Korean kids, so I started chatting with them. The kid had just bought one of the framed beetles I had seen in a stall down the way and was showing it off to his friends. They were somehow connected to a Korean girl who was studying at
I took another route home, finding myself in the bar section of the market – this huge open air plaza full of little squares of bars with tvs and pool tables and girls at the ready. I couldn’t find a
taxi (surprise, surprise) so I walked down the street headed back to my guest house. I found this art gallery still open so I ducked inside. Downstairs was an amazing collection of beautiful silk and sequined clothes. I got to chatting with one of the gallery owners, and he took me upstairs to show me the studio part of the building. His name was Ti (as in “tea”) and he’s a woodcutter. He pulled out a dozen of his woodcut prints. They were so beautiful. Most of them had these incredible images of people – sexually charged yet androgynous, figures superimposed on each other. So much detail. So much energy. I met another one of the artists who was very shy. Ti and I talked about art in 
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