I Have Slipped the Surly Bonds of Earth...Put Out my Hand and Touched the Face of God

I'm soaring over a landscape of indescribable (I'm still going to try, I'm a tad stubborn) beauty right now. Sweeping and anthemic music is filling my ears and lazily sliding by my window are clouds that look like they were pulled from Van Gogh's most vibrant dreams. The landscape is littered with lush, green mountains and a brown river is slowly winding its way to the ocean, bringing the season's heavy rains back to their temporary home, continuing the endless and essential process of the water cycle.  Small cities are found every few minutes along the river, their roads spreading like some kind of benevolent urban arachnid. The general busy-ness of Thailand streets is literally miles away and it all seems to express some sort of supreme serenity from up here. Flying can be stressful, it can be uncomfortable, it can be frustrating, and it can seemingly bring out the sociopath in even the most level headed pacifist, but moments like this are pure bliss.

We're leaving Chiang Mai and headed for Kanchunaburi, which is a somewhat bittersweet feeling. Chiang Mai was wonderful, it was full of excitement and natural beauty, and the people we met were (mostly) filled with vibrance and exuberance about being in Thailand. It also smelled a lot nicer than Bangkok, so that was an added bonus. It still felt somewhat manic compared to sleepy Winnipeg, but that's only because all of our business takes place behind closed doors and in skyscrapers, so far from the street level of pedestrian traffic that the only proof you see of anything actually taking place is often the flustered assistant returning from Starbucks with a tray of steaming white cups: in general Chiang Mai is pretty laid back. People work long days (often 10-12 hours), but it's usually in a field that they enjoy (which is often evidenced by the mile wide smile the locals tend to be sporting 90% of the time), and at a pace that would be ridiculous to call rushed. The tourism industry seemingly employs 80% of the populace in Chiang Mai, which of course is cause for some conflicting feelings in myself, but after spending a week there, I've pretty much resolved most of those conflicts. Chiang Mai has its seedy underbelly, but that's something you need to be aware of when you come to Thailand, it's very pervasive. Tourism is Thailand is quite varied, but sex tourism is certainly a focus, so if you have any delusions about not seeing anything that might make your skin crawl at least a little, you're going to find those delusions debunked.

But even though the people of Chiang Mai are surrounded by a bunch of strangers doing strange things, they take it in stride and they are in fact quite lovely. Our guest house hosts were a great example of this: Nina was a serious looking matriarch with a heart of gold (and sort of served as our Thai mom for the week) and Stella, her slightly younger sidekick, who was kind of like your badass¹ older sister who buys you liquor when you're underage. They greeted us with smiles and advice for our days, the scoop on which restaurants are best and were very assuring when Andrea went to a class while I laid in bed cradling my ailing stomach. "Don't worry, we'll take care of him," was their reassuring response, and more than anywhere else so far in our trip, we felt very much cared for.

¹ But not really badass in the least. Unless by badass you mean uses a lot of powdered skin bleach and makeup(I guess bronzer would be the cultural equivalent for most of us). But she was still totally a sweetheart.