I decided that I needed to see the countryside, so I decided to rent a motorbike. Just as with Australia, I had about half an hour in city traffic to adjust to the new mode of transportation before taking to an extremely serpentine mountain road.

The first stop was Doi Sutep, a temple on a mountain overlooking Chiang Mai. As the story goes, a white elephant carrying sacred relics was climbing the mountain, and close to the top, it collapsed and died. The monks decided that this was a sign as to where the relics should be, and built Wat Phra That Doi Sutep. Zen? The temple is accessed by the Naga Steps, a set of 306 stairs lined by the sculpture of a snake. As you can tell, the place was packed.

The next destination was the Phra Tamnak Phu, the winter residence of the royal family, about 4km further up the mountain. Seeing another horde of tour buses in its midst, I decided to forgo the crowds and keep driving. Besides, I was having too much fun on the bike. I drove to Doi Sui Nature Reserve, and hiked to the summit of the mountain. This offered no views, since the mountain is covered in forest. Instead I got a sign read "Doi Sui Summit". Aha.

On the way back down, I ran into a guy who was following roughly the same itinerary as me that day, only 20 minutes behind me. Turns out he was a doctor from Switzerland, and the next thing I know, I'm having a talk about nuclear medicine in the middle of a forested Thai mountain top. Zen?

When I returned to Chiang Mai, I found myself in the thick of rush hour traffic. In Chiang Mai, road rules are really just suggestions, as the motorbikes will fill in any gap there is in the traffic. Ah, flow like water. I made it to the old walled square part of the city, where the traffic travels one way within the moat and stone wall, and the other way outside, with the odd little spot for U-turns midway along the side of the square. I occupied myself getting the hang of the bike in this new environment, and once it started to get dark, tried to figure out how to get home. I think I made several laps before I figured it out, seeing this bright yellow sign of a hardware store to the point of frustration.