Yesterday after a breakfast of spicy udon at a local noodle shop, I boarded a 7 a.m., $1.50 local public bus to Pai, a town in the Mae Hong Son province, about 4 hours north of Chiang Mai and about as close to Myanmar as I’m going to get. Some describe the ride as a series of motion sickness-inducing sharp turns all the way up into the mountains, and the payoff is a laid-back, do-nothing-except-drink-coffee-and-hang-out-at-waterfalls sort of place. It’s been described as “hippyish,” and I couldn’t think of a better way to spend my last full day in Thailand.

The a.m. ride was literally cool, and scenic — think broccoli-like bushels of greenery below mountain cliffs, grey mist, faint smell of smoke (smallish man-made fires aren’t uncommon here in SE Asia). I arrived around 11, and ended up at a local motorbike rental where I promptly paid my $5 for a bike and what turned out to be a very, very bad map (I did get lost along the way, and now more than ever appreciate my sense of direction which led me back to town).

I understand why people love motorcycles and the open road. It was another gorgeous day, with perfect sun, fields for miles, streams and small rivers — and I drove for 4 hours. I had a coffee at a new establishment overlooking it all, spent a little time at an old WWII memorial bridge (my grandfather was stationed in Thailand during his military service, so this was of particular significance for me). Late afternoon and back on the bus, I settled into the trip back to my current “home.”

And I’m now preparing to leave again, though I could stand to stay a little longer — I’m just now getting the hang of it here. I’m used to the bus schedules, the markets, the money, the bargaining, the eateries, the SIM cards. Yet, tonight I say goodbye to Chiang Mai, to Thailand, and fly to India via Bangkok. I didn’t write much about Chiang Mai when I arrived because I didn’t know what to say. People (especially tourists) love it here. They rave about how it’s so much better than Bangkok, but I wonder if that’s just because it is, perhaps, the next big thing. CM is the cultural center of Thailand — temples, museums, sightseeing — but I haven’t done much of that. My experience has been largely food. And then today, in the local Warorot market, I realized that that’s plenty of culture right there.

The food here is, as they say, amazing. I’ve had fiery papaya salad with ground peanut, rice of all shades and textures, minced pork (okay, tofu) marinated in chili, garlic, lime and sugarcane… this morning’s breakfast was one of my favorites: black sticky rice with coconut milk custard, which I might love because you eat it from a plastic bag with your fingers, or because it’s black sticky rice with coconut milk custard. At the market, one of the women guided me through making another treat — tender crepes with fresh, salty peanut butter, eaten with any of sweet coconut, cilantro, dried garlic flake and pepper. The markets are beautiful here, and I’ve never seen anything like them. Rows and bags and boxes of produce, just-made sweets and rices, 6 million kinds of sausage and 200 kinds of fish. I sort of can’t believe I didn’t take a cooking class, but I just assume buy a cookbook and spend those hours eating.