Three hours north east of Bangkok, the traffic has ground to a halt. Surrounded by the evergreen forests and grasslands of Khao Yai National Park, the cars soon find themselves backtracking from an unexpected menace – wild elephants on the road. A few minutes away though, there is no stopping the momentum of Thailand’s biggest musical event, the Big Mountain Music Festival. Now in its fifth year, and held on Khao Yai’s Bonanza Racetrack in picturesque nature, it has grown into the largest festival in South East Asia, attracting 130,000 people over two days.

Chiang Mai, Thailand’s green and pleasant northern city near the intersection of Laos, Myanmar, and Thailand — Southeast Asia’s “Golden Triangle” — has been a hot spot for travelers for generations for its walled city of temples, massage parlors and mystical mountain basin setting. But it’s not all elephant rides and cooking classes anymore; a new influx of tourism has catalyzed the regional melting pot of cultures into a new and flourishing arts scene, with galleries and cafe culture blooming all over, from the Ping River in the east to Nimmanhaemin Road in the west. ARTINFO gives you the lowdown on six of the best, as well as essential intel for spending a few days immersed in Chiang Mai’s burgeoning art scene.

This Phuket, Thailand, home has the biggest private pool in the area and a 300-foot stretch of beach to itself. The house was designed by Jean-Michel Gathy to fuse traditional Thai and contemporary design.