Two Weeks
in Chiang Mai
of the holiday between Songkran and the rains.
Two weeks. Two friends.
One signature move.
This is the record of what happened when two blokes from Adelaide pointed themselves at northern Thailand and refused to slow down. A pair of friends from the other side of the equator: a Mercedes cap and a polo, a paisley shirt and a beard. Beer in hand wherever the postcard view lined up — a habit, by now, indistinguishable from a passport stamp.
KL Layover
A few hours in Kuala Lumpur.
The layover wasn't planned as a destination — it became one anyway. A beer at the airport restaurant, the control tower lit up outside the window, the flight map showing exactly how far from home we were. The comfortable knowledge that the real thing was still ahead. And, briefly, the duty-free aisle: a 21-year-old Balvenie Portwood at RM 7,139 that we considered, photographed, and ultimately walked away from.
Villa Baan Thip
Home base.
Villa Baan Thip, 123/9. A jade-green pool, a teak compound at the end of a quiet lane, and the kind of stillness you can only find when you've deliberately gone somewhere far away. We slept well here.
Sucking Stones
Songkran was in the air.
Sucking Stones Brewing Co. became a recurring anchor — the kind of place you find on day one and keep coming back to. The taplist runs long, the Ping River is right there, and on the evening of the 15th, on the rooftop, a cocktail-cheers happened that became the trip's thesis statement.
Doi Suthep
Three hundred and six steps.
You earn Doi Suthep. The naga staircase winds up through bamboo and incense until the city of Chiang Mai opens out below you like a rumour. At the top, somewhere in the saffron cloth tied around the bell tower, our names written in ink — a small wager on luck, made permanent.
Doi Inthanon
The roof of Thailand.
Doi Inthanon — Thailand's highest peak — meant twin royal chedis at altitude, a spirits distillery tucked into the mountainside, and a tasting flight that arrived just as the mist was coming in. The cheers shot at the chedis is the one we keep coming back to.
White Temple
Wat Rong Khun, Chiang Rai.
An entire temple built from white plaster and mirror glass, blazing in the midday sun. The bridge, the hands reaching from the earth below it, the impossible whiteness of the whole thing reflecting into the koi pond. We drove three hours for this, and it was the right call.
The Feast
We cooked. Well, we tried.
Mortars and pestles, paste from scratch, two men in lavender-stripe aprons who had never made papaya salad before. They handed us a handwritten menu in Thai and said go. What came out was, genuinely, one of the best meals of the trip.
The recipe, in her own hand.
Thai script, four dishes, four numbered lines. Pad kra pao. Tom kha gai. Som tam. The fourth, somebody at the table eventually translated: "fish in pandan leaf." Most of the cooking was guesswork. The note was the only thing we couldn't lose.
Old City
Inside the moat.
Tha Phae Gate at dusk, a cold one each, the whole old city behind it. Old Days Barber Shop for Dan. A tailor on the other side of town who spent two days turning John into something out of a Noël Coward play. The white linen suit was, in the end, purchased.
Ping River
The river by night.
Lanterns strung between the palms, a long table, a parade of seafood arriving in waves — crab and chilli and things with no English name. Dan held court. A local friend joined for the second night. Nobody went home hungry.
Grab. The phone-app, anyway.
A skewer of grilled pork ordered at 13:05. A man on a motorbike at the gate twenty minutes later. The food on the right is what arrived. There's a kind of simple joy in things that worked exactly as advertised.
After Dark
After everything closed.
The sky bar sits above the city with views that go all the way to the mountains. MAI The Sky Bar on the last big night — the city lit up below, whatever happens on the rooftop stays on the rooftop. Earlier: a teal tunnel at the lift exit. Dan walked through it like a man arriving somewhere important.
Coda
The last morning.
Sandwiches made. A bag of snacks for the flight sorted in a hurry. A glasses-cheers with whoever was still standing. Dan, somewhere on a rooftop the night before, striding into the neon. There's a version of this trip that goes on forever. We're still working on that one.
And then there was the cartoon.
Dan, somewhere on the second-last day, sent through a picture of himself rendered as a small cartoon character striding down a hotel hallway. We have no idea where it came from. We have not thought to ask.