Where I live is awesome...

Copy of an Email I sent to my fam...

As I drove home tonight, I had the strongest urge to share with you all the beauty and quite frankly the magic that is Chiang Mai. There is no way to properly describe the feeling of driving home on your bike, weaving seamlessly in and out of traffic, a warm summer breeze on your face. As you leave the traffic and chaos of the vibrant Sunday Market, passing the massive ancient eastern gates, the noise dies and you can hear the birds singing their evening song as you drive along the moat. The bars along the moat road all put Christmas lights around their entrances and it is by this soft light you drive with the old city on your left and the fountains in the moat on your right. Coming to the corner of the old city, you lean into the turn, feeling the centrifugal force on your bike as you tip the bike to its side to make the sharp corner in the shadow of the old wall. Quickly straitening from your turn, you prepare to move to the right of the road and go through the brightly lit western gate that marks the beginning of Suthep Road. Because the traffic is light, you easily glide across the lanes, cross the moat, and turn onto Suthep. As you drive past Wat Suan Dok (The Buddhist University) and the Chiang Mai Neurological Center, you look up into the dark sky to see it lit by Wat Doi Suthep. This famous temple sits atop the mountains that overlook Chiang Mai and features a giant gold stupa (Buddhist spire). The stupa is so bright, you can see it clearly, as well as the surrounding buildings lit by the reflection of golden light off the stupa. And because of the darkness, it seems as if the temple is suspended in the air, looking down at you from heaven.

Nearing the university, the traffic increases and you are surrounded at the stop light by students in casual dress instead of the familiar university uniform (it is a Sunday after all). Driving along the road outside the university, you must be careful of all the motorbikes zooming about, as well as the cars and hundreds of bikes that line the road as students get dinner and coffee at one of the dozens of food stands and make-shift restaurants that line the road. It is already 8:30 at night, but business is just starting, and the four-lane road will be busy until 11 pm. Finally, you see the main gate of the university on your right, and you turn left into the single lane that leads to your apartment. As you drive slowly along, you notice students studying in the donut shop that offers free wi-fi (midterms are this week) and a tall, skinny student carrying his laundry back to his apartment across the street. As you slow to let a car pass, you see a freshman paying the very stylish barber for his new haircut before zooming up the hill, passing the outdoor coffee shop and Christmas-light-adorned bar filled with students getting their drink on before Buddhist Lent begins in the morning. Slowly, you turn into your apartment complex, smiling at the Policemen statues lining the wall and waving at the tiny guard that makes it a point to ask where you’re going every morning, despite the fact that it never changes: Bpai Nai Wan-nii (where are you going today)? Chan Bpai Rian Moto-sai (I go to study the motorcycles). Parking your bike in a space that is much too small but is mercifully underneath the awning, promising a dry seat in the morning, you wiggle out of the space between bikes and head up to your apartment for a blessed shower and bed, utterly grateful that you get to live in such an awesome place.