Chiang Mai is an 800 year old city that has done a great job evolving into a liveable, modern city while still retaining a sense of its history. It’s the second biggest city in Thailand at about 1.2 million people, but it feels worlds away from Bangkok. It’s a bit cooler and dryer than Bangkok, far less crowded, a bit cheaper and much more liveable. It’s not the most beautiful city, but it’s got a nice, comfortable feel about it. As proof of that there are a ton of foreigners living in the city; both from the west and from other nearby Asian countries.
I spent two weeks in Chiang Mai and was able to watch the Super Bowl at 6:30am on “Super Monday”, see Thailand’s largest mountain, explore the temples in the old city, see a Thai cabaret show, experience a muay thai fight, get some amazing medical care, play disc golf for the first time, and participate in a trivia night. All that is documented below. It helped that a good friend of mine, Phil, from my time living in Playa del Carmen has been living here for over a year now.
One of the many night markets. These were wonderful cornucopias of cheap Thai and Asian food and drink.
Wats Around The Next Corner?
Chiang Mai’s old city is a labyrinth of small alleys, traditional restaurants, cool coffee shops and tons of temples – called wats – that are from hundreds of years old to a few years old. Like Starbucks in Manhattan, they can be seen pretty much everywhere in this part of town.
I actually thought these statues were real monks when I first popped in, then realized quickly they weren’t. It was still a bit startling.
The old city is a large square surrounded by an ancient moat that is now a series of really nice canals. There’s also a large brick wall that surrounded the city just inside the moat, but now there are just a few crumbling fragments that remain.
A typical boutique shop in the old city.
A relaxed coffed shop next to one of the many ubiquitous 7-11s in Thailand.
One of the many small alleys that lace their way throughout the old city.
The annual Chiang Mai Flower Festival was just ending when I arrived, and one of the local parks in the old city still had the lights set up to celebrate the festival.
At 6:30am on Monday the 13th my friend and I stumbled into a small bar with a score of groggy Americans to watch the Super Bowl. It was still dark outside when the game started. It was a great game and fun to watch, but really strange to walk out of the bar at 10:30am with the whole day ahead of us.
A week later I joined Phil for the Tuesday night trivia night in Chiang Mai. It was much smaller than the trivia nights we used to go to in Playa del Carmen; there were only 7 teams in the small bar. But it was still fun and we came in second place, only a half a point out of first.
Disc Golf
Phil started playing disc golf a few months ago and is now part of a group that plays every Saturday at a local golf course. I got to join him one Saturday and it was a lot of fun. I sucked, but then that’s point when you start something the first time.
Then Phil, his girlfriend Lisa, and I had a chance to play at a private course some of Phil’s friends created from some private land a wealthy Bangkok family owns near the city. The land has been used for large group activities and even a number of music festivals. Since the golf doesn’t really affect any of the other uses, the owners are OK with the disc golf usage.
Doi Inthanon National Park
Doi Inthanon is a beautiful area a couple of hours outside of Chiang Mai. It was a nice day trip and we had a chance to see a couple of really nice waterfalls, two enchanting pagodas, a local village, and drive to the top of Doi Inthanon, which at 2,565 meters (8,400 feet), is Thailand’s tallest mountain.
At the village we walked around a bit and then tried some amazing freshly ground coffee they just harvested. A German couple on the tour were such coffee afficienados they brought their own coffee with them when they traveled. They loved what the village produced!
And what would a village scene be without a litter of pigs, just being pigs, guzzling down their mother’s milk?
There’s two small pagodas at the top of Doi Inthanon to mark where one of Thailand’s king’s ashes are buried.
The fairy tale like grounds for the two large pagodas that are monuments to Thailand’s current king and queen.
A Cabaret in Chiang Mai
When I arrived in Chiang Mai Phil said he and his friends wanted to take me to one of the nightly cabaret shows. Hmmm…a bunch of Thai lady boys singing and dancing in a small bar in an older part of Chiang Mai…what could go wrong? It ended up being a lot of fun. Thankfully, there were no The Hangover Part 2 type of foggy, regretful outcomes to be had here.
And of course near the end they lit the bar on fire just because, in Thailand, they could!
Afterwards a few of us went for a nighcap at a small, local bar owned by a Thai friend of my friend.
Muay Thai Fighting
And we go now from a cabaret to kick boxing. We went on a pretty mellow Monday night to see some amateur Muay Thai fighters go at it. The main event was a French fighter against a Thai fighter. It seems the Thai’s always try to match foreigners against Thai fighters when they can; it adds some nice nationalistic spice into the mix. The most interesting thing is that all these fighters seem to be good friends. While they were not fighting in the ring, they all hung out together in the back area outside of the ring. The audience was pretty much all Westerners.
The first fight was really short; it ended less than a minute into the first round.
Yeah, the music was “interesting” and the Thai announcer speaking in English was pretty annoying.
Then these two young, really tiny girls went at it.
The third fight was with two Thai guys and was a lot faster, and pretty funny when the guy in the red slipped trying for a long kick.
Next we had two much larger women fight. They mainly punched and grappled, and didn’t do as much kicking.
The main event was by far the most intense. The French fighter really went after the Thai fighter, finally knocking him out in the 4th round.
Wat Phra That Doi Suthep
Wat Phra That Doi Suthep is a Buddhist temple at the top Doi Suthep mountain, overlooking Chiang Mai. The temple is said to have been founded in 1383 when the first stupa was built. Over time, the temple has expanded, and been made to look more extravagant with many more holy shrines added. Wat Phra That Doi Suthep is considered to be one of the most sacred pilgrimage spots in Thailand because it has a relic of part of the Buddha’s shoulder, as well as the influence from Chiang Mai being the center of the Lanna Kingdom back in the 14th century. In fact the wat can get 120,000 visitors per month, with the numbers being higher during holidays.
It’s reached by a winding highway from Chiang Mai, and then there are over 300 steps to climb to get to the main temple area.
Looking down on Chiang Mai, about 2,000 feet below.
Medical Tourism
I had a chronically sore shoulder ever since I learned to surf a couple of years ago. I wanted to get an MRI to make sure there was nothing permanent to deal with. Chiang Mai is known for having excellent health care, so I did some research and made an appointment with an orthopedic surgeon at the Bangkok Hospital of Chiang Mai. As you can see, the lobby section felt more like a hotel lobby than a hospital.
I had an initial consultation with the surgeon, then had a 45 minute MRI, and finally came back a couple of hours later for a review of the findings with her. Thankfully, there was no permanent issues; just some residucal scar tissue from my original shoulder surgery and some persistent inflamation on one of the tendons that go into the front of my shoulder socket. She gave me some simple, but so far effective, therapy exercises I could do on my own, and away I went.
I also had developed an ear infection a couple of days before so I was able to meet with an Ear, Nose & Throat doctor while I was there, and get a prescription for some ear drops.
Overall it was an excellent experience. The consultation, the MRI, the final review, and the meeting with the ear doctor all together cost less than $500. All of this could have easily cost 3-4 times that in the US.
My Apartment
I had a really nice, inexpensive Airbnb apartment in the college district near Chiang Mai University. It was also, by complete coincidence, in the same complex Phil lived in and in the same building his girlfriend lived in. It made everything so much more convenient.
