Doi Inthanon

The forest is vibrant in green, lush like a painting festooned with moss and orchids. It is so quite and peaceful inside, interupted only by the melody of bird song. I don't recognize their calls. It is all so familiar to the cloud forests I love in Latin America, but this is Asia. The species are all different!

Emerging from the quite cool of the forests we entered a high meadow of bracken fern and dwarf shrubs buffeted by the winds. Here incessant wind and summer fires beat back the forest to create a high meadow. At the very top the winds are ferocious, like the buffeting gusts you encounter at sea. With no water to sculpt and animate they break upon the steadfast rock of the mountain and stream errie trails of mist over the bonsai elfen forests.

Wild rhododendrums in bright red dot the trail descending out of the winds and in the distance the hills march away north to Myanmar and Yunnan China. It captures my imagination and makes me dream. Behind me the twin spires of a huge temple rise up like minarets on the mountaintop adding to the mystique and wonder. While closer by, the terraced patterns of rice fields and small villages dot the plain below. Rural and bucolic, this is timeless Asia lost like some shangri-la vision.

Where am I? From what dream have I emerged here on the mysterious slopes of Doi Inthanon...