Up North

Being newly arrived (two days ago) in Chiang Mai brings to mind that great long sentence from Stuart Little, which describes a drive in the countryside where “the back yards were bushy and worth finding out about, where the streets sloped down to the stream and the stream flowed quietly under the bridge, where the lawns ended in orchards and the orchards ended in fields and the fields ended in pastures and the pastures climbed the hill and disappeared over the top toward the wonderful wide sky.”

Cows are wandering around in what might as well be my back yard—fields just a few hundred meters down the road. People are speaking a dialect I can’t catch—until I ask a question, when they answer in central Thai. Even though it’s the hottest month of the year, I don’t feel as sweaty as I usually do down by sea level.

But this season the weather in the north has a downside. Dust in the air blows in from areas nearby that practice slash-and-burn farming. I don’t notice any breathing problems, but going barefoot inside the house tells the story—even though I sweep the floors every day, the bottoms of my feet are black in just a few hours of walking around.

Traffic rarely crawls in Chiang Mai, and sometimes moves quite fast. Trying to cross a road at one point, I spotted a gap in the cars coming from my right, as they always do in Thailand. As I began quickly making my way to the other side, I surprised a family on a motorcycle that was putt-putting along in the wrong direction. They honked, just in time. I felt the breeze their passing made as we missed colliding by millimeters. Lots to get used to here.

Perhaps I should ask the chickens how and why they cross the road?