A day in the mountains
It’s a bit weird reflecting now on Chiang Mai- a place we expected to be somewhere we might be able to stay for an extended period- and writing the two most extensive pieces on places we visited that were a fair way outside its city limits. This details a trip we took when we hired a car and headed south- towards Thailand’s biggest mountain, Doi Inthanon. Firstly, the drive itself was fairly relaxing- we seemed to get out of Chiang Mai’s infamous traffic fairly quickly- after first taking a wrong turn and ending up driving into a “restricted” area (so restricted that half of Chiang Mai was using it as a shortcut) much to Ilka’s disbelief. We ended up following a ring road alongside the mountains that border the west of Chiang Mai- with picturesque rice fields sitting before them. We followed the turn-off towards the mountain, which was dotted with various other attractions- which given that we had precious little idea of exactly how attractive they were- we basically had...