Thailand: as described by a young farong only there for a little while

I've been wanting to paint a picture of my time in Thailand for a while. It's hard to describe a country, especially when you still feel like you don't know it very well. But there are some things that I can describe.

Thailand is hot during the day and cool at night in the dry season. Chiang Mai is a city that doesn't feel like a city, except the roads and the pavement go on forever and the buildings are all closer together. It feel like a town that just keeps going on and on. The buildings not much more than 3 stories, shops and houses small.

Things sometimes feel grimier here, but that may be because it's a different country or because it is a city. And the traffic moves faster and jerkier and there are many more motorcycles/mopeds here than at home.

In the city food is everywhere, street stands, noodle shops, restaurants, corner stores. Some is fresh, some is not. 

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Look to the mountains. In certain parts of the city, you can see them. In the country side they can't be missed. The mountains here aren't like those at home, not really. Some stretches are used for farming or turned into rice paddies, but other stretches still have forest. The forest feels much the same at at home, but here and there things feel distinctly different: the texture, the color, the shape.The plants com together, the same puzzle pieces, but the picture is just a little new.

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Sometimes, in photos, you see beautiful mountains or valleys, cloaked in fog as the sun set lights up the sky. 

But I've learned that this god isn't necessarily fog. It's just as easily smoke. Rice paddies are burned towards the end of the dry season to make good conditions for mushrooms. But mile after mile of small fires lit in the fields send clouds of smoke into the air, fogging up the distant hills and leaving your throat dry.

It's a country of smilers and laughers. I've yet to meet a single unpleasant person. They work hard, but know how to joke and relax at the end of the day. They dress conservatively, but brightly. Helpful, polite, but unafraid to laugh at an with your mistakes. 

Markets light up the streets, crowd them with people. Sweetest people you ever did meet. Greatest lessons about humanity you've ever been taught.

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Goodbye, Thailand. You're beautiful and filled to the brim with treasures. Goodbye!