We Love You, Chiang Mai! – Part 2

We really, really do love it here in Chiang Mai. Mind you, so far we’ve only lived in Old City, and have only traveled out of Old City for relatively brief excursions. But we truly do love all of Old City, and what we’ve seen of the rest of Chiang Mai, and we’ve got plenty of photos to help show you why!

Table of Contents

• Old City, Chiang Mai
• Food
• Temple Massage
• Markets

Old City, Chiang Mai

So, what is Old City? On a map of Chiang Mai, you’ll see a square outlined in the city centre: that’s the walled and moated neighbourhood of Old City. It’s around 1.5km square, so you can easily navigate it by foot (great for us!) or bicycle.

There are six gates in the brick wall, and they’re still standing (along with some of the wall itself). Tae Phae Gate (the one to the right) was refurbished in 1980s, but the remaining gates and wall are for the most part original.

Why is Old City walled, anyway? I looked it up, and basically, Old City is the 2nd iteration of the capital of the Kingdom of Lanna (Kingdom of a Million Rice Fields). The first capital was moved after a decade due to floods (and it was a good choice to move it, because that city was eventually buried by mud after the river changed course). In 1296 the king, along with his brothers, chose this area as a good choice because of seven good omens (along with more practical reasons, such as proximity to the Ping river for trading, the protection of Suthep mountain, and ample land for rice farming).

Anyway, from the beginning Chiang Mai was built based on military and astrological beliefs. The king wanted it protected, so ordered a wall and moat be built to surround it, and bam! Within 4 months most of the work was done, thanks to the 40,000 men “hired” to construct it. And there you have it! An extremely brief and abbreviated history of the wall and moat of Chiang Mai!

Wall and Moat

The moat is still here and it’s so pretty, even when the waters are murky. There are lots of little foot bridges to cross over, and trees all around it. The water is circulated by fountains and sprayers and water-wheels so there are remarkably few bugs. The trees are awesome…and check out their roots! The ones with ribbons wrapped around them are holy trees. We can’t imagine how old they are.

The whole moat and wall just has an incredibly historic and old feel to it; we love walking along it.

And it’s just as pretty at night.

Alleys and Roads

We spend hours walking along the alleys here, pretty much daily. Old City is just so scenic! There are so many alleys and walkways and twisty-turny roads, and it’s all very clean and picturesque. The roads are narrow, but traffic is great and it feels very safe here.

Every turn brings something new…one day we found this fence being painted…it’s even brighter in person!

Food

There are markets, and shops, and massage places, and so many restaurants. And Vegetarian/Vegan restaurants like you wouldn’t believe! We read that Chiang Mai was a vegan heaven, but until you’re here you really don’t know what it’s like. We’re within easy walking distance to at least 10 or more (we haven’t hit them all yet!), and the prices are very, very reasonable. And, there’s a range of any type of food you’d ever want to eat, from Thai to Western, Indian, etc. There are also vegan cakes, chocolate bars (locally produced!), and donuts!

Even the 7-11s (which are plentiful) have vegan ice-cream in their freezers. We’re definitely getting spoiled here!

There’s a tiny place that’s literally just around the corner from our apartment that we frequently visit (she knows our order!) for the pad thai…it’s delicious, and such a large plate that we have to split it. It’s called the Cat Station, and there are cats all around, along with plants and cat decor. It’s really cute!

The people across the road have birds, including this sun conure that likes to sit on the gate in the sun and watch the world. Isn’t s/he gorgeous?!

Temple Massage

The Old City has quite a few wats (temples), but so far we’ve only visited Wat Pan Whean … they offer massages there, and they are truly amazing! We’ve had the traditional Thai Massage (and it was the first time that Wayne didn’t experience pain during this massage) and we had a Hammer massage!

This massage is called Tok Sen, and the masseuse uses a hammer and padded mallet to actually bang your body. It sounds horrible (and doesn’t look much better, check out any video on youtube!) but is so incredibly, incredibly relaxing. I came out of my massage feeling like a refreshed and relaxed limp rag, and almost floated all the way home on a little bliss cloud. It may be my favorite type of massage!

It’s a very pretty wat, as is pretty much every one we’ve seen in Thailand!

We’re pretty sure that most, if not all the wats in Old City are active Buddhist temples with practicing Monks. A lot of the other temples we’ve visited elsewhere often seemed “showier”, although there were usually some monks or practitioners around. This is definitely a very Buddhist city.

Markets

There are a lot of markets here, and they’re quite fun! The closest market to us is a food vendors market, we can get a large fruit shake there for around $1 Cad. There’s also a guy selling gyozas (we eat the veggie one), and a lady who makes Kanom Krok, or Thai Pancakes, which are so delicious! They’re little coconut-milk filled pastry-type things topped with sweet corn or green onion, served in a banana-leaf bowl, and are gooey bites of yumminess. So healthy, right?! And all for $0.80!

You can see she’s made them a few times…

We’ve also visited the Sunday Night Walking Street Market a few times, which is packed with vendors of food and touristy stuff. Our first time there we wandered for around 5 hours, and treated ourselves to one of the many foot massages being offered for just over $6 for 30 minutes! Blissful.

Seriously, this place is heaven for us!

Hope you’re all doing well, and these photos help you escape from winter for a while if you feel the need to escape!

Lots of love from Old City, Chiang Mai.