Chiang Mai is one of those places where your head is always on a swivel, seeing new things. There’s spectacular temples, amazing markets with a huge variety of handmade crafts, the smell of incense, jasmine and delicious food, and the chatter of almost every language known to man. It’s busy and fascinating and lots of fun.

The food can be incredible. You can go out to a Michelin ranked restaurant for under $30 for two. There are about forty of them in the city. There are restaurants for just about every cuisine imaginable. But if you like Thai food, you’ll be in heaven. It’s so good. And you can ask them to be light with the chilis, which is probably a very good idea. Us farangs (the Thai slang for westerner) can rarely take the full on spice of local Thai food. But you’ll find great seafood, and some fresh fruits and veggies you might not have even heard of. Try them. I particularly liked the mangosteens, although they are a lot of work for a little bit of fruit.

The markets are so much fun. Chiang Mai is full of beautiful handcrafts and the prices are quite low, too. Look for textiles, carved wood and even beautifully carved soaps. There’s also lots of fun souvenir type things – little stuffed elephants, fun key chains and of course the ubiquitous elephant pants. So comfy and cheap, too. At this writing, a medium size pair of elephant pants is 100 Bht, or about $3.

It can be very inexpensive to live here. This is why there’s so many expats that have come to retire here on a pension. We didn’t know how to do lodging efficiently when we reserved our place but it’s possible to get nice, western style short term rentals for well under $1000/month, often much cheaper. Food can be very inexpensive. You can get take out from a reputable restaurant (not talking street food) for under $3 for a meal, and if you go the street food route, you can do it for half that amount. Sit down meals in a decent place can be $5-$6. Most things you will need or want will be very, very affordable, including the beautiful crafts here.

It’s both a blessing and a curse, but there’s a very large expat population here. That means it’s very easy to integrate. Lots of English. There’s even an expat English-speaking Rotary chapter. It’s the first place we’ve been that when we say we’re here for three months, that’s a relatively short time to visit. But because long-staying farangs are so common, you’ll probably wind up socializing with and getting to know the expat community and culture rather than the Thai culture. That said, it makes it very easy to ease on into this world.

The people are friendly and helpful – both native Thai’s and expats.  Much better vibe than experienced in most tourist destinations.

Provides insights to a region, culture, and history that’s a gap for most westerners and western education.  We knew very little about this area, so it was a great opportunity to learn about Lanna and Thai culture,  and also about SE Asia, Myanmar/Burma and the role of the British, Japanese and Chinese in this region. It’s also a good place to learn about Buddhism and Meditation.

Many interesting day trips from Chiang Mai.   Although  we weren’t able to visit all the areas because of the floods, there is a lot to do in the area around Chiang Mai, and because of the robust tourist market, there is a lot of infrastructure to do it. Among the best things to do is explore the mountains of Doi Suthep and Doi Inthanon, visit an Elephant Sanctuary, take a cooking class, or go on a River Cruise on the Ping. Lamphun and Chiang Rai are great cities to check out that are nearby.  And the airport easily connects with other regional destinations for overnights.

What We Didn’t Like

My least favorite thing about Chiang Mai was walking around. Part of it was where we lived – we were in the Nimman section of the city, outside of the Old Town. While Nimman itself is fine, it is very difficult to walk back to the Old Town and other places in the city – often no sidewalks, and if there are, the cars are parked on them, forcing you to walk in very busy roads. You will see very few Thais walking; it’s mostly Westerners who try to navigate the roads on foot. Very few pedestrian crosswalks, and most of them are still dangerous. We wound up taking Grabs (their version of Uber) any time we wanted to go to the Old Town, or even most other places because it was so dangerous to walk, even if the place was relatively close. If you live within the Old Town, this won’t be nearly the problem it was in Nimman. While there still aren’t sidewalks in a lot of places and you’ll have to walk in the streets in the Old Town too, the roads are much smaller and people drive slower, so it’s not quite as bad, although the scooters can still give you a scare from time to time.

It’s HOT. I mean, very hot. If you go in the fall, which I highly recommended over the spring, September will still be pretty brutal for heat. Even in November, you’ll be warm. If you suffer in hot weather, this might not be the nest for you. September and early October is the rainy season. Chiang Mai flooded quite badly while we were there.  A large part of the city around the river was under waist high water and there were several deaths. While it was the worst flood in fifty years when we were there, floods around the Ping River area aren’t uncommon. But in the spring, the farmers burn their fields and since Chiang Mai is in a valley, the smoke settles in and gets very, very thick. People call it Smoke Season and have air purifiers in their homes, if they even stay in the city for that time. There are smoke rooms in schools that the children go into that are specially filtered when it is a bad day. Most expats take that time to visit home. It’s very unhealthy and people get sick. The peak tourist season here is from November to February because it’s the coolest without smoke, but then you have the tourists and the higher prices.

The apartments, even the newer, western-style apartments, are lacking in some things we’d consider basic. Water isn’t potable. You probably won’t find an apartment with an oven and the kitchen will be tiny and poorly outfitted. Maybe you’ll have two burners, a microwave and a small fridge and that’s it. Few people cook.  And strangely, the only hot water will be in the shower. This makes it especially difficult to wash dishes.