Hotel Chiang Mai Night Bazaar

Chiang Mai is a great city with a relaxed atmosphere, low prices

on almost everything, a temple or pagoda every 100 m - in the old town, within the moat and the partly still existing city wall - . If you want to travel to Chiang Mai there are several options with one constant value traveling is through Bangkok. You could take a car and have a drive though Thailand's countryside, means huge tracks of paddy field, low hills and a wide horizon. There are several flights from Bangkok to Chiang Mai and there are even flights from Chiang Mai to Phuket by Bangkok Airways. There is also a bus to Chiang Mai almost hourly from Bangkok. In north Thailand is a dense network of buses with but there is no direct bus to Chiang Mai from a geographical line south of Bangkok - Kanchanaburi. All traffic funnels through Bangkok and the Bus from Bangkok to Chiang Mai leaves Mo Chit bus terminal in Bangkok.

If somebody wants to do it the slow way take a train to Chiang Mai out of Bangkok. Once you touched down at Chiang Mai Airport take the taxi, airport bus or minibus and move to your Chiang Mai hotel, resort or other accommodation. In the evening a vibrant nightlife on certain parts of the city, great restaurants, great shopping, a free Thai classic dance show at the night bazaar, adventure and action in the north of the city and so on wait for you, read on and enjoy the great pictures.

I stayed in the Montri Hotel on the corner of the Ratchadamnoen Rd and city wall, the hotel is very well organized and people are very friendly, plus its very economic. You will find plenty of pictures on this page, for videos have a look in the video section. Around the hotels are plenty of travel agents offering everything tourist related, including Thai food cooking classes. But strange, no city sightseeing tour, it looks to me as if they don't want to walk, since within the old Chiang Mai city limit all can be reached by a short walk. They also offer motorbikes, bicycle and cars for rent, a small motorbike -100 cc- is about Baht 150,- per day -negotiable-.

Tours are offered into the "hinterland" such as Doi Suthep and Doi Inthanon, Doi Inthanon is Thailand's highest peak and a very popular destination among Thai people. A very popular tour is to visit one of the elephant camps, beside the road to the north, and do a elephant and a bamboo raft ride, more on this see below. Other tourist attractions are a visit to a monkey and cobra show, do trekking, rafting, inclusive bamboo rafting. Beside of the usual flight connection to Bangkok, there is also a flight to Mae Hong Son. This is a quite interesting Thai tour destination. The city is the right place for shopping various handicrafts and other local goods sold quite low prices, means after tough bargaining. It's a top tourist destination in Thailand and for sure the premier travel destination in northern Thailand.

Typical Chiang Mai night bazaar shopping items are wood work including teal furniture and teak carving, silk cloth and decorative items, various silver art, jewelry, clothing, ceramics items such as celadon tableware and decorative items. There are typical Thai interior decoration works and antiques, Buddhist art and lacquer work, plus plus.

Chiang Mai Night Bazaar is one of the biggest and most popular night market in Thailand. From your Chiang Mai hotel just take a tuk tuk or motorbike taxi it only takes a couple of minutes to reach the night market. Since the night market has several restaurants, food stalls and food courts integrated including a large stage where Thai dancing and singing is performed its easy to spend the whole evening there and explore the street-side stalls and arcades. The Chiang Mai Night Bazaar is the right place to shop for exotic souvenirs and handcrafted goods created by skilled crafts-persons from northern Thailand. Beautiful Buddhist art is also available, mostly either Buddha images and Buddha Statues.

The so called “Walking Street Market” is open on Sundays, has a great atmosphere and the right place for bargain shopping. As usual plenty of Thai food stalls plus Thai massage and especially foot massage parlors are around you could also get some good looking Thai tattoos at one of the Tattoo parlors.

Shopping at the source could be done at the factories at San Kamphaeng Borsang village, they have useful handicrafts and the unique Borsang umbrellas. Another handicraft production village just south of the city is Baan Tawai with a wide selection of wood carving, wood decor plus other handicrafts including attractive celadon ceramic creations such as table ware and other products.

Plenty of shops selling “hill tribe art” made in the northern Thailand tribal areas. One of the better shops is the Hill Tribe Products Promotion Center offering products made by Akha, Hmong,

Karen, Yao , Lisu, and Lahu people. They switched from opium poppy cultivation to handicraft and other agriculture crops some years ago, just go there and buy something you find useful or decorative, you will gain merit the Buddhist way. Other bigger shopping centers are Kad Suan Kaew Plaza and Central Airport Plaza.

Panthip Plaza on the
same road as the Night Bazaar its for computers and electronic gadgets shopping, more or less the same as Panthip Plaza in Bangkok. The city has a long and rich history called Lanna culture. Dozens of Buddhist temples and pagodas other historical sites are everywhere across the city.

Ratchadamnoen Rd. the main road crossing the once fortified old city, still showing some old city wall fragments and gates plus a moat around the old city.

There is no town on earth and between earth and the moon with this kind of shopping paradise, ..“the mother of all night market” told by Lonely Planet.

The Chiang Mai night bazaar is somehow in the middle of the city, just behind the tall hotels and easily reach by a tuk tuk for Baht 40,-.

The food markets cater for almost every taste, all is served in a clean environment. Here you will find all kinds of foods, handicrafts, artwork, textiles and other items from the region. There are plenty of bargains, keep in mind, no haggling, no fun. Plenty of so called antiques are on display, but, they are fakes almost all the times.

The night bazaar is just behind the high rise hotels and has not only shopping to offer. Several huge open air restaurants grouped around food courts are at service, in between Thai dancing.
Thai music wobbling through the air at the Chiang Mai night bazaar and on the huge stage Thai classic dancing
is performed, This integration on such a huge scale is really “well done”, but before you arrive there you must push your
way through hundreds, maybe thousands -nobody know, as usual in Thailand. It wont matter anyway, because its great.
There are the Indian Sikhs, Singapore Chinese and the groups from mainland China, Japanese guys all kind of Farang, Pakistani, Arabs with women gliding like black covered mummies, totally invisible.

A real great contrast are all the beautiful Thai girls and ladies who have no shy to show that they are real pretty. Actually Thai women have a high level of emancipation and the Thai guys and other have enough self confidence in relation with the women. Asking any Thai working here where she or he come from, likely they will tell ..“from Isaan” the remote north eastern corner of Thailand with the highest amount of population and as usual in such a constellation also the highest amount of poor people in the Kingdom.