7 ideal things to do in Chiang Mai

The short list, pulled out of the long essay. No opening hours, because they change and I would only get them wrong — just what is worth your morning, roughly when to turn up, and where I have wasted time so you don’t have to.

By Ščenza

Last checked October 22, 2025

The Monk's Trail to Wat Pha Lat, then on up to Doi Suthep
Trailhead west of the city, behind Chiang Mai UniversityStart at first light; never during the March–April burning season
Roughly a mile of forest path, steep in stretches and shaded nearly all of it, used for generations by monks walking down into town. Forty-five minutes gets you to Wat Pha Lat, which sits over a stream with moss on every surface and almost nobody in it. Carry on another hour uphill and you reach the 306-step naga staircase to Wat Phra That Doi Suthep, where the songthaews have already delivered everyone else. I once did it downhill instead, out of laziness, and it is a distinctly lesser walk.
Monk Chat at Wat Chedi Luang
Old city, Phra Pokklao RoadDaily through the daytime; tables on the north side of the grounds
The chedi was finished in 1441, lost its upper section to an earthquake, and is still enormous — a brick mountain sitting in the middle of a walled town. Over in the northern corner of the grounds, novice monks sit at tables to practise English with whoever turns up. Ask them something real; they field 'what do you eat' about forty times a day. I asked a nineteen-year-old what he found hardest about the robes and he said mosquitoes, then asked me what Croatia was, and I made a poor job of explaining it.
The Lai Kham viharn at Wat Phra Singh
Western end of Ratchadamnoen Road, old cityEarly morning, before the first groups arrive
Visitors come for the big gold buildings at the front and walk straight past the small one at the back, which is where the good material is. The Lai Kham chapel holds the Phra Buddha Sihing image and a set of Lanna murals of northern life — market scenes, tattooed legs, people plainly gossiping — painted in a register much closer to comics than to scripture. Shoes off, sit down, give the left-hand wall ten unhurried minutes. It is the best short lesson in Lanna culture available in the city.
Wat Umong, the tunnel temple
About 4 km southwest, at the foot of Doi SuthepLate afternoon, when the light reaches into the tunnels
Founded in the thirteenth century as a forest retreat, with brick tunnels driven into a mound so that monks could meditate undisturbed. You walk through them into small shrine chambers and back out into woodland with a lake where turtles sun themselves on logs. Broken Buddha images have been left lying where they ended up, which affects me more than any restored one does. I sat on a bench there for an hour and only realised afterwards that I had not looked at my phone, which in my case is close to a medical event.
Breakfast in the basement of Warorot Market
Chinatown, near the Ping riverMid-morning, while the day market is at full tilt
Kad Luang is the oldest and biggest market in town, three floors of it, and the food is downstairs. Northern sausage, Shan noodles, bags of pork crackling the size of pillows, khao soi eaten off a folding table with a stool that wobbles. The flower sellers work the eastern side and by nine the whole lane smells of jasmine garlands. Nobody in here is performing anything for your benefit, which after a week of walking-street stalls is a considerable relief.
The Saturday Walking Street on Wualai Road
Just outside the southern moatSaturday evening
Wualai was the silversmiths' street and some of the workshops are still hammering — you can stand in an open shopfront and watch a man raise a bowl out of a flat disc while the crowd flows past your back. It is smaller and calmer than Sunday's market on Ratchadamnoen and the food is better. Bring cash and very low expectations about your walking speed. I bought my mother a silver bracelet here in 2019 and she still wears it, which is a better outcome than most souvenirs manage.
A day at Elephant Nature Park
Mae Taeng valley, roughly 60 km northBook weeks ahead; a full day including the drive
Lek Chailert started this in the mid-nineties as a rescue for elephants worn out by logging and trekking camps, and it now holds more than a hundred of them, plus a startling number of rescued dogs. No riding, no scrubbing them down, no show. You watch. If that sounds anticlimactic, you have not stood ten metres from an animal that hauled teak for thirty years and is now, deliberately, doing nothing at all. Book the real one — several outfits nearby have confusingly similar names.

The long version

Chiang Mai: the slow northern city of temples, noodles, and hills

Chiang Mai is what Bangkok was, possibly, before the expressways. A small grid of moated streets, three hundred temples within walking distance, the smell of charcoal and lemongrass in the evenings. It also has the best curry noodles in Thailand.

Read the full essay →