Holiday Drafting while strolling.

 Spending a Government Holiday with the family today in the mountains of Northern Thailand.

The people didn't get to do the annual coming-of-the-Monsoon Water Festival of Songkran because of COVID-19.

Now that COVID is under control in Thailand, the government is giving the government workers 4 days for a holiday.

Got up early this morning, made some instant coffee, fed the cat, and packed my laptop, along with my voluminous "Aurin Cluster" setting notebooks into three backpack bags.  I put them in the car's trunk and left at dawn for the 40km freeway drive to the mountains.

The scenery is epic jungle trees decorating the lowlands while deciduous trees climb the slopes of the nearby mountain range that forms the valley of Chiang Mai, as we head further south we can catch sight of the highest mountain in Thailand, Doi Inthanon, and the landform they call Tiger Mountain (shaped like the face of a tiger.)  An emerald-green carpet of jungle trees covers the slopes of the mountain.

Arriving at the family compound, waiting for us on the ceramic tile porch is a Thai breakfast of mushrooms and basil, along with mushrooms and bamboo and Spicy Thai Northern sausage, surrounded by plastic bags with rice from the morning market.

Breakfast is done, and after pleasant chats with relatives in my limited Thai, my tongue is aflame with spicy food aftertaste. 

Now with Samsung J6 smartphone in hand, I'm walking along a narrow blacktop road in this Lanna (Northern Thai tribe) mountain town of 5,000 people.

Motorcycles with Thai people young and old are filling the streets. Local people pack in (with masks) to the local rice shops made of wooden tree trunks and corrugated tin for a roof. 

The older people wear cowboy hats or straw hats to keep the sun off.

No one notices a near-tragedy when a three-legged dog limping down the middle of the road with his tongue lolling out is almost crushed by a passing pickup truck. The truck passes, farmworkers and their sharp tools packed into the rear truck bed.

At the last second the dog dashes to safety, to stop, panting while standing in the sand that lines both sides of the road.

I keep walking toward my favorite 3-in-1 coffee source.

 The warm sun makes it 31 degrees centigrade, diffused through a passing cloud, and I'm sweating as I walk.

Now crossing a little one-lane chicane road bridge where there is room for one car or two motorcycles to pass.

The bridge crosses a local drainage stream. The stream beneath the bridge has dried brown and yellow bushes and weeds on either side but in the center is swirls of thick green algae mixed with the local trash.

None of this is dramatic.

Yet it's very pleasant. A quiet day. No politics, nor 10 lies a day from a self-serving corrupt administration.

I wonder how would I describe this scene if it existed in one of my novels.

A day in a Market town in Thailand, walking to 7-Eleven to get coffee.