Chiang Rai

Our last night in Chiang Mai was pretty interesting as we went to the Sunday Walking Street – a big market in the centre of the old town. We went to this market last time we were here and remember it being popular but it has absolutely exploded in size and popularity in the last 15 years. Taking up 1.5-2km of street, we estimate there were 50,000-60,000 people there. It was absolutely packed. Everyone behaving very well of course, which is lucky as it could have been a bit dicey otherwise with the sheer number of people.

We ate from various food stalls and looked at other stalls as best we could as we battled the crowds from one end of the market to the other. Once we finally got out we weren’t able to get a cab home so we ended up having to walk for 50 minutes, getting home just after 9pm. Given that we’d started the day doing the Monk’s trail up the mountain, it made for a big day of walking!

Our week in Chiang Mai drew to a close as we waved off Granny and Grandpa (for their flight to Singapore and then on to Auckland), then we left the city ourselves on a bus to Chiang Rai. 

It all nearly went a bit awry when I took us to the wrong bus station, but luckily we had enough time to jump in a car and get to the right bus station and still get on the bus.

With lots of road works on the trip, it took a little longer than it might usually but at around 3.5 hours it was a pretty easy drive up to Chiang Rai. The bus station was just a few minutes in a car from our hotel so we were there by late afternoon. 

When I booked this place, it was the photos that sold it to me – very interesting colour scheme and furniture where most things (including the whole building) are gold, and every chair is a throne. It didn’t disappoint! Our room is also massive so we can’t complain.

With it already being late afternoon we only had time for a little wander around to the main street and the really fancy clock tower (not to be mistaken for the really boring clock tower, which is where google maps took us first). We had some dinner near the clock then came back to the hotel for an early night.

The next day we were up and sitting in our thrones for the buffet breakfast. We didn’t get there until 9am – lesson learned – get to breakfast earlier to get the good stuff. 

We then jumped in a car to head north to the ‘Black Museum’ – a museum and art gallery displaying some very odd works in a number of buildings which were all black. This museum houses the world’s largest collection of dead animals made into furniture – think lots of chairs from buffalo skin and horns, rugs, crocodile skin and more. It was a bit out there, but pretty interesting. There were some odd buildings as well – one in the shape of a fish, and some others that were just round concrete domes. 

We spent a good couple of hours looking at everything, then got a car back to the main shopping centre for some lunch and a look around there before heading back to our accommodation for a quiet remainder of the day. We must have been pretty tired from our big week in Chiang Mai as we all had a nap, and then ordered in some takeaway as we couldn’t muster up the energy to go out.

A bit more rested, we started the next day a bit earlier, which paid off at the breakfast bar. We then went south to the ‘White Temple’ which is an absolutely beautiful building, albeit with some very strange and macabre artwork depicting a lot of death and destruction (and the odd appearance from movie characters such as the alien from ‘Alien’…). It’s not old (built around 1997) and really is more of a sculpture than a working temple. 

The other buildings in the complex were interesting too – a couple of interesting art galleries, another temple (gold this time) dedicated to Ganesha, and a really cool ‘Art Cave’ which again had some spooky artwork in it.

We spent the whole morning wandering around there before heading a bit further west to Singha Park. This enormous park is part tea plantation as well. We got dropped off near the gate then walked through the plantation to the restaurants where we had a snack from a food truck while sitting on the grass looking over the fields. 

We then thought we’d walk to the petting zoo, but got denied entry because we didn’t have a wristband. It was then we noticed that everyone else had one – we still don’t know where they got them from and the security guard seemed perplexed as to how we’d got in without one. There were also lots of people driving round in golf carts or on bikes or little novelty cars – again, we seemed to have missed a crucial part somewhere along the line where all that was available.

Turned around at the zoo gate, we walked back out to the main gate (a good couple of kilometres), then jumped in a car and headed home. It had been nice to be out in the countryside even if we couldn’t find all the things we were after in the park.

Being new years’ eve, we decided to put our glad rags on and head back to the clock (the good one) where they’d blocked off the street for a new years’ eve party with a couple of stages and lots of tables, chairs and market stalls. 

Because I was in search of a cocktail (in lieu of my usual NYE champagne) we ended up eating in a restaurant where Jim and I had a delicious green curry each and the kids had a yummy carbonara. I had a couple of cocktails, then we walked the main street with the locals watching a bit of the entertainment on stage and checking out the stalls. 

As we usually do, there was no way we were going to make midnight, and we were tucked up in bed by 10pm at the latest, but did get woken up by the fireworks a couple of hours later. It’s been many, many years since we’ve seen in the new year with a solid roof over our heads as we’ve usually been camping on a beach somewhere.

Well it’s now 2026, so we started off the year as we finished it – by exploring Chiang Rai a bit further. Poor Heidi has a bit of a dodgy belly, so she rested a bit while I did some work then we headed out to walk up to the ‘Blue Temple’, about 40 mins through the city. 

It was very quiet on the streets as the locals recovered from their new years’ eve shinanigans, but there were plenty hanging around the blue temple, so named because it is of course, all blue. 

After a coffee stop there we wandered home again where we had a quiet afternoon playing card games and catching up on various things (such as our story writing). 

We’re off to the laundromat soon (exciting stuff), then will pack our bags ready for a flight tomorrow morning back to Bangkok. But we’re not really going to Bangkok, just to the airport, to catch the train from the airport station to Lop Buri, about an hour or so up the line.

Happy New Year all!