Chiang Mai: What to Do With Four Slow Days
Chiang Mai is where travellers in Thailand slow down. It is cooler than Bangkok, small enough to cross on foot inside the old city walls, and cheap enough that four days feel like a week.
6 min read
Day one: the old city on foot
The square moat encloses a walkable grid with several hundred years of temple architecture inside it. Wat Chedi Luang, Wat Phra Singh and Wat Phan Tao are the three that reward a slow visit.
Dress with shoulders and knees covered, take shoes off where indicated, and go before 10:00 when the courtyards are still cool.
Day two: cooking class
A full day class costs roughly 1,000 to 1,600 THB and usually starts with a market visit to explain ingredients most visitors have never seen raw: galangal, fresh peppercorns, pea aubergines, several varieties of basil.
You will cook four or five dishes. Ask for the northern ones, khao soi and sai ua sausage, rather than only the dishes that appear on menus abroad.
Day three: the hills
The monk's trail up to Wat Phra That Doi Suthep takes around two hours through forest and is free. Alternatively, a day in Mae Wang or a short trek with a village homestay gets you well clear of the city.
If elephants are on your list, choose carefully. Look for places with no riding, no performances and no bathing sessions, and expect to pay more for that.
- Monk's trail to Doi Suthep: 2 hours up, free, start early
- Sticky Waterfalls at Bua Thong: you can genuinely walk up them
- Mae Wang or Mae Chaem for one and two night treks
Day four: markets and nothing
The Sunday Walking Street is the big one and it is genuinely enjoyable if you arrive at 16:00 rather than 19:00. Warorot market is the everyday version, busiest in the morning.
Otherwise, a cafe. Chiang Mai has a serious coffee culture built on beans grown a couple of hours north, and the afternoon heat is a good excuse to sit in it.
When not to come
March and April bring smoke from agricultural burning across the north, and air quality can be genuinely poor for weeks. November to February is the best window.
Songkran in mid April is the water festival: memorable, extremely wet and not restful.
