Chiang Mai's Walking Streets

On Sunday evenings Chiang Mai closes Ratchadamnoen, the street running from Tha Phae Gate to the centre of the old city, and fills it end to end with stalls. Saturday does the same on Wualai Road in the old silversmiths' quarter. The interesting part is not the street itself, which sells much the same crafts and prints as any Thai night market, but the temple courtyards along it: each opens its ground as a food yard with plastic stools and a ring of stalls, and that is where the northern cooking is. Khao soi, sai ua, grilled river fish, sticky rice steamed in bamboo, coconut pancakes off a griddle.

What you actually see

• The temple food yards - courtyards opened up with stalls and plastic stools.
• Northern specialities - khao soi, sai ua and sticky rice in bamboo.
• The Wualai silver quarter - Saturday's street through the silversmiths.
• The Tha Phae end - street musicians and the gate as a meeting point.

When to go

Both markets run from late afternoon until around midnight, with the crush falling between seven and nine. Cool-season evenings are pleasant and correspondingly packed. Eat in the temple yards early and shop later, once the street has thinned. The nightly bazaar on Chang Klan Road covers the other five evenings of the week.

Honest expectations

The crawl gets so slow at peak that crossing the street takes minutes, and valuables are best zipped away in the crush. Most of the craft on sale is the same wholesale stock repeated down the length of the street. Rain empties it fast, and in the burning months of March and April the air is genuinely poor.

Nearby

The old city temples, Tha Phae Gate and Warorot market north of the moat.