The futile quest for silence:
One thing (besides the heat) that always bugs me in Southeast Asia is the simple fact that it is never silent anywhere. Walls are thin and if there are no people talking loudly to be noisy in inhabited areas, then there certainly is traffic, car horns or an old air-conditioning-unit rattling away. You never get a moment of quiet and to me, who grew up as an only-child in Europe in houses with concrete and/or brick walls, this is a small but steady kind of stress. So I decided to set out to find some quiet, riding the motorbike out of the city, which is no small feat as the highways draw inhabitants to themselves around here, making it feel like you never leave the suburbs of any given city, always driving past houses, shops and snack-bars until you're in the next large center of population. Leaving Chiang Mai and going for about 15 kilometers one gets to Mae Rim, where, going left onto a more rural road, the way leads on to the Mae Sa valley. Besides several waterfalls and a holy cave, the valley holds a few villages clinging to the sides, apparently growing fruit or vegetables in greenhouses along terraces dug into the hillsides. Beyond the valley, settlement stops. The road snakes along a mountainrange overlooking a breath-taking series of jungle valleys and hills. Then there is the view platform. As I pull up next to it I realize that I won't find quiet here. The jungle is too close, up the hill across the street and right below the platform. It is not as noisy as in the city but the electrical-disturbance-sounds the crickets make are present. There is no quiet to be found around here, I realize, but the view is well worth anything...
...aaand incopatibility between Opera and blogger.com prevents me from showing it to you... I shall rectify that later when I'm at another computer...
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