Things To Know Before Going To CHIANG MAI, Thailand

Chiang Mai is a city located in Northern Thailand with the laid-back atmosphere budget-friendly travel and tons of beautiful temples it's also a popular destination for its large amount of markets delicious food and elephant sanctuaries yo what's up everybody we're Peter and Yin travel bloggers from New Zealand and we've been to Thailand multiple times before but our latest visit here to Chiang Mai has made us fall in love with Thailand all over again it only has so today we want to share with you a couple of tips and things to know in case you're planning a trip to Chiang Mai 2. yeah getting around Thailand is very easy and convenient the best app to download would be grab so then you can use the Rideshare services to get from your destinations point A to point B Chiang Mai City itself is quite compact so in our experience the cost is usually around 70 to 100 baht for a grab which is about a 10 to 20 minute ride but if you're going to Unique locations outside of town then you'll want to check the price of public transport versus hiring a car for the day or going on a group tour renting a scooter is also an option however you'll want to check whether your travel insurance will cover this as it's usually excluded from policies there are also plenty of tuk-tuks but you want to make sure that you negotiate and confirm the price per person before you get into a tuk-tuk and make sure that you're very clear about where it is exactly that you want to go here in Chiang Mai there's another form of transportation which is very common and it's also Chiang Mai's answer to public transport which are these broad things that you see around me here or red taxis they're also known as songtel and same like with the tuk-tuks you want to make sure that you just confirm the price per person before you hop in for your destination where we are here is a very popular stop because it's where a lot of the raw things will gather and it can take you to places like deuts to tip which is where we're going today [Music] thank you so Ian and I ended up waiting about an hour for this Grande to almost fill up it's going to cost us a hundred bucks to get up here we're not coming back to the same wrong bank and uh its best price would have been 60 bucks so it's definitely not the best thing if you're in a rush but it's still a fun experience anyway [Music] in Thailand there are a number of famous festivals like songkran which is the Water festival and this occurs on April 13 to 15 every year there's also Loi krathong which is the Festival of Lights and that's where you see the ones where there are floating baskets that are released into the waterways and rivers this normally Falls around November each year but the date does change there is another Festival though in Chiang Mai that happens at the same time as Loy kraton and that's yiping and that's where you have the lanterns which are released into the night sky and it looks really Majestic however another thing to keep in mind when planning your trip and when to come to Chiang Mai is to know that there is something called The Burning Season and this normally happens around January to March or April each year and it affects Northern Thailand the most which means that Chiang Mai does get quite badly affected the intensity of it though and when it actually happens it sort of varies because it depends on the weather and on the human activity but it can get quite bad and the air pollution and smogginess is very noticeable so it's a good idea to wear masks especially around that time there's also the rainy season to consider and this normally happens around June to October so these are a couple of the months and dates to keep in mind when you're planning your trip here to Chiang Mai foreign is still a majority cash-based Society so it's really handy to have some cash on you especially as you're leaving the airport because you might want to pick up a SIM card and you'll also need the cash to pay for your grab which is the transportation from the airport to your accommodation speaking of SIM cards the three main mobile network providers are AIS true move and d-tech we went with AIS which cost us 999 bucks for the month and that gave us unlimited data and calls we've found that the coverage has been really good as AIS and true move are meant to have the best Mobile coverage across Thailand now withdrawing from an ATM is much more economical than going to a Cash Converter but there is one very important thing to note and that is our ATMs there's a very high ATM withdrawal fee so it ranges from 150 but at aeon ATMs up to 220 Baht at most other Banks and so one thing that you might want to do is find this bank right here which has an upper limit withdrawal amount of 30 000 Baht and what that means is if you're good at budgeting you can work out roughly how much you're going to need for the entire trip and make one massive lump withdrawal which will save you on making multiple withdrawals and saving on that fee each time another thing to note is that there's also conversion rates which you'll have to think about and we've got an international debit card which is with wise and that keeps the conversion rate pretty minimal but if you've got a card with your local bank then that's an additional fee on top of the ATM withdrawal fee which you'll have to remember now once you've made the withdrawal what you'll find is you're going to end up with a whole bunch of thousand Bart nodes which is incredibly inconvenient and you'll want to break those down at a global store somewhere like a 7-Eleven or a Watsons where they'll give you the exact amount of change in smaller notes because if you try and take that thousand baht to a full food store or like a fruit truck or something like that what you'll find is they often won't have the right amount of change for you and you could end up paying more than what the actual price is it's also going to apply if you're trying to catch a grab because if you imagine if you're the first grab customer for them they're not going to have enough spare change to break down that thousand button on [Music] if you're worried about the language barrier it's a bit less of an issue especially here in Chiang Mai as you'll find that locals can generally speak at least a little bit of English to pretty good English but having the Google Translate app is always handy as you can then also translate things like signs or menus if there's no English available some of the common phrases that you'll hear will be saladika which is hello or which is thank you and those are good phrases to learn yourself to and practice with locals [Music] [Music] there are loads of hotels and airbnbs to choose from here in Chiang Mai and Yen and I we opted for Airbnb because it was better value than going with a hotel and also you still get facilities like the swimming pool and also gym in the accommodation that we're staying at we'll leave the details down in the description below but what we found is there's a whole bunch of various apartments that you can choose from because our complex is pretty big what I also really like about it is that it's in a neighborhood where a lot of locals stay so you'll be able to find things like sewing shops grocery stores and also food stores which are really commonly nearby and what you have to do when you come to Chiang Mai is eat some of the Local Foods now Carl soy is the one that you definitely have to try the Beautiful creamy coconut curry and those egg noodles are to Die For in fact when Yen and I first arrived in Chiang Mai and had that on our second night it was just like delicious a lot of locals say you haven't really visited Chiang Mai until you've had a cold soy so do make sure you try that out for yourself too foreign [Music] activities in Chiang Mai will be visiting an elephant sanctuary and there are so many to choose from so we really encourage that you do your research though to find an ethical one we've actually made a vlog about visiting elephant Nature Park which will put a link either up here or down in the description below which we hope you'll check out but something else that you'll find in Chiang Mai are a ton of temples and they are all beautiful like the one we're here at now this is DOI sutet and just like all the other temples around Thailand and Chiang Mai you'll want to make sure that you address appropriately when you visit which means covering your shoulders and no wearing shorts or any revealing clothing also remember to take your shoes off before you enter the main Temple thank you [Music] if you're looking to do some shopping while you're here in Chiang Mai there are a couple of shopping malls which you can check out there's Central Festival Maya and there's also Central Plaza Chiang Mai airport which isn't actually in the airport but it is a short drive nearby too at about five minutes or so while you're at these malls though the best thing to check out are actually the food courts because they are pretty awesome so it's well worth visiting while you're there but if shopping malls aren't your thing though that's okay because the markets here in Chiang Mai are the weekend ones in particular our next level we went to a really cool one on Sunday night which runs through the middle of the old town you can find various goods for purchase as well as art but most importantly there's great street food and it's just awesome picking out all the different stores and trying new things but there's also local farmers markets and they run on both Saturday and Sunday but if you're not here on the weekend it's okay you've still got the nightly Bazaar it's not as varied in terms of what's being sold there but it's still good to get a taste of what's going on foreign [Music] well guys that wraps up our things to know before you come over to Chiang Mai videos we hope you found it helpful we've probably missed quite a few things so if we have please feel free to add them into the comments below so you can help other Travelers too yeah Chiang Mai is a place that we've thoroughly enjoyed visiting our three four week stay hasn't been long enough we feel like we still need to stay a little bit longer but we'll definitely come back to Thailand again and visit another time won't we yeah definitely 100 so if you guys have enjoyed this video don't forget to smash the like And subscribe guys yeah that will really help out our Channel we super appreciate it and we will catch you on the next video see ya next time

Channel: Peter and Yen

Views: 47,815

Keywords: things to know before visiting chiang mai, chiang mai things to know, things to know thailand, chiangmai things to know, chiangmai vlog, chiang mai vlog, doi suthep

Id: aTqSwMre-tw

Length: 11min 44sec (704 seconds)

Published: Sat Apr 15 2023