I’ve come back from Coron five shades darker, a souvenir I never asked for and don’t particularly like. My skin bears the evidence of long days under an unfiltered sun, the kind that doesn’t negotiate and doesn’t apologize. I tried hats, I tried shade, I tried convincing myself it would fade quickly. It didn’t. But with a beach like this, how could I complain? There are worse prices to pay for beauty, and this one felt almost fair.
Ask the backpacker clutching a tattered Lonely Planet from the ’90s, or the influencer piloting a drone over rice paddies—they’ll both say they’ve “done Vietnam.” What they mean is they’ve braved Hanoi’s honking, hyperactive chaos or drowned in Saigon’s neon and motorcycle fumes. The middle? That blank space on their itinerary, the part between the clichés. Which, to me, is exactly the point.
Chiang Mai is not a city you merely pass through; it’s a place you absorb, slowly and deliberately, letting each street and scent settle into memory. Arriving here for the first time, I had 48 hours to peel back its layers, an ambitious timeline, perhaps, for a city so deeply rooted in tradition and mystery. Yet, Chiang Mai’s unhurried pace and reverence for detail allowed me to settle in and explore with a rare intimacy in travel.
