5 minutes ago, Antonymous said:

If you come to Chiang Mai and stay in a downtown hotel, eat at the overpriced 'farang' restaurants and visit only the accessible hackneyed sights and sites, you'll never know what Chiang Mai is, or appreciate why so many long term expats have chosen it as their home.

You're right, a bit out of town is perfect.

 

4 hours ago, bkk6060 said:

Yes.  And the Thais with the most money, Bankonians, can drive in  few hours to the beach resorts.  Why go through the hassle of a flight to CM to be land locked and bored?  They obviously are not.

And they must be sustaining the high prices. Just looked at Khao lak for November. I'm not seeing any prices to attract more domestic tourists ...

4 hours ago, holy cow cm said:

Lived here in CM way over 20yrs and still love it. I can still travel to beaches or BKK or where ever. Has a small city feel. After about 3 -4 days in BKK I am ready to come back home.

Me too, however this year the smoke was really bad. 24 hours BKK is sometimes enough for me ????  

Just last week a friend of ours  went to, I  think,  Pattaya and hired a jetski, needless to say on returning to shore it had 5000 bahts worth of damage, nicely negotiated down to 3500 with the "help" of the BIB so the scams are alive and well and  as per usual the Thais don't have any sense of  killing the goose even when many of the geese have fled, greedy and scamming as ever.

too many backpackers there and not enough girly bars

 

they're doing it wrong

On the flip side - As expats living in the area, it's way cool to have the streets to ourselves.

5 hours ago, CorpusChristie said:

I have never understood the enjoyment of sitting on sand and looking at water 

The Mrs Connda says that it's sitting on the sand, looking at water, and eating crab.
 

5 hours ago, bkk6060 said:

Bankonians, can drive in  few hours to the beach resorts.  Why go through the hassle of a flight to CM

 

The flight to CM is shorter than the drive to the closest beach. 

28 minutes ago, JeffersLos said:

 

The flight to CM is shorter than the drive to the closest beach. 

I think people prefer to travel without close contact with others.  Car is king ????

 

And what's the point of visiting Chiang Mai & surroundings without your own transport?

28 minutes ago, JeffersLos said:

 

The flight to CM is shorter than the drive to the closest beach. 

If I want a beach, I fly to Da Nang ...... COVID allowing.

1 hour ago, SomchaiCNX said:

Me too, however this year the smoke was really bad. 24 hours BKK is sometimes enough for me ????  

Agreed. 

1 hour ago, cyril sneer said:

too many backpackers there and not enough girly bars

 

they're doing it wrong

Too many girl bars but no girls. And those there often old.

7 hours ago, CorpusChristie said:

I have never understood the enjoyment of sitting on sand and looking at water 

Yeah same opinion! And get skin cancer from your top hoppy! If i want swim i go my pool! If i want lay down i go hammock whit cold Chang whit me! And listen reggea whit joint in my lips!

15 minutes ago, ChaiyaTH said:

Too many girl bars but no girls. And those there often old.

So, Not enough prostitutes and no girls in bikinis on beaches to look at  .

7 hours ago, CorpusChristie said:

I have never understood the enjoyment of sitting on sand and looking at water 

And you are from the home waters of the spring break mecca of South Padre Island? 

4 minutes ago, Mac98 said:

And you are from the home waters of the spring break mecca of South Padre Island? 

I'm not

I went to Walking street in Chiang Mai city yesterday. The crowd is half the volume before Covid-19. It was a breeze walking through unlike in previous years.

 

Not all the stalls were opened too. Most of the shops said their business have gone down more than 50%. They told me Chinese tourists are essential to their business.

This doesn't take any analysis.

 

It's happening all over the world.

 

Covid19 and it's China's fault.

 

The world as we knew it, is over.

8 hours ago, Somtamnication said:

Very sad and extremely worrying. 

 

 Not for me it ain't .

  Thai people , deserve what they voted for ..

1 hour ago, Yorkshire Tea said:

 

And what's the point of visiting Chiang Mai & surroundings without your own transport?

Car Rental inside the airport. ???? 

8 hours ago, bkk6060 said:

Yes.  And the Thais with the most money, Bankonians, can drive in  few hours to the beach resorts.  Why go through the hassle of a flight to CM to be land locked and bored?  They obviously are not.

Can also drive to pak chong in a few hours have just as nice views and less pollution . 

Lack of foreign tourists having devastating impact on Chiang Mai tourism

Ditto: Samui, Phuket, Koh Lanta, Krabi, Hua Hin, Cha-Am, Bangkok.... et al.

7 hours ago, Bender Rodriguez said:

after they open the schools, maybe airports will follow ?

airports have been open for some time. Just no international flights for tourists or visitors

5 hours ago, ajarnmarc said:

90 days upon entry, and single page application for renewal. No stupid photo required, no proof of where you stay, and no reporting every 90 days either. In the Philippines they even have a separate section within Immigration to assist with filling out the single page application. No worries that if you get some document wrong, in the stack that you must submit within Thailand, that the Immigration will throw the paper work and your passport back at you. I have seen this happen several times in various location throughout Thailand, or even worse is when the Immigration asks you to leave the office to have a private chat in another building. I have been lucky to not have that situation happen to me personally, but witnessed it on multiple occasions, again at various offices. The boarders can not open fast enough for me to depart this insanely backwards country, which has shown all it's glory in my past 21 years here, and I conclude I'm bored to see much more of it, nor worse still, to hear others try to justify the officials actions. My guess is they have not seen as much interactions as I, so they are still left with some sort of positivity. As the saying goes, "Thailand is great, until it's not, then you best have your plane ticket, and bag ready for a quick departure, or the officials will look for every way to get into your pockets and take all you have". I even had the tourist police take me to the atm machine in Phuket to take out money. Did I do something illegal? No, I wanted to buy a car, I was here for just a month at the time, and I had to put the car into a ladies name. So when I finally figured out how to get a non b visa, and got my work permit sorted out, I thought it was time after my forth month here, to get my car in my own name. The Thai lady was fine to transfer the auto back into my name, but the transport office stated we needed to go to the tourist police at that time "2000" to get the residency document. Once the tourist police found out what I was needing and why? They decided to take my thai lady friend outside for a chat. Upon her return the tourist police explained to me that I needed to pay the lady 80,000 bht to have the book taken from her name into mine, since it was technically illegal to have an auto put into some else's name who was not the actual owner of the auto, as stated to the transport office at the time of registration; is how they explained it to me. 

You've surely had a tough time in Thailand. Hopefully it's better for you in your next destination. The borders are open now. Surely you'll keep TVF updated.

4 hours ago, SomchaiCNX said:

Me too, however this year the smoke was really bad. 24 hours BKK is sometimes enough for me ????  

Never been to CM - got halfway (Uttaradit / Phitsanulok) but the prospect of all that smoke sort of put me off.

Maybe one day.....

6 hours ago, hotchilli said:

Som nam na... all the rip-off venues can go bust... AND YES I MEAN IT.

I stayed in CM last year for 10 days... talk about walking around with a target on your back.. from taxis to restaurants and bars, souvenir/gift shops, silverware etc etc etc, you name it they tried to rip me off.

It was in fact a spoiler for a break I had planned and looked forward to for a along time.

I will never go back to CM even if it was free. 

Really, I have been here 10 years and never been ripped off but I also stay out of Karaoke bars.

11 hours ago, CorpusChristie said:

I have never understood the enjoyment of sitting on sand and looking at water 

 

Too bloody right. Much rather sit on a barstool looking at a beer.

 

11 hours ago, bkk6060 said:

Yes.  And the Thais with the most money, Bankonians, can drive in  few hours to the beach resorts.  Why go through the hassle of a flight to CM to be land locked and bored?  They obviously are not.

It's boring for slugs. It's great for people who like the outdoors as there are plenty of hiking, and other excursions one can do. There are some nice art museums in Chiang Mai as well. I've never been bored in Chiang Mai but I have been bored at the beach often. 

11 hours ago, CorpusChristie said:

Its also not just the Thais who earn a living from the tourist industry that are affected .

Those that usually earn money from the tourist industry are not spending that money in the local economy and numerous non tourist related businesses are closing down

I have said this before. Keynes money supply, money demand. A tourist workers 100 baht is another persons 20 baht after spending in a ship and another’s 30 baht and another’s 50 baht and so on. They then continue this process at a reduced diminishing rate until that 100 baht has been consumed into the economy and the return of wages again the next month.  If you throw a 100baht stone into a pond the ripple effect is the spending effect of the economy. Stop those stones falling into the water and the spending and income dries up. That is why governments use automatic stabilizers such as unemployment benefit to start the stones being thrown again and to start the economy. Also the stimulus of giving money as they stated will also give new impetus and new stones. Stop the stones dropping in the pond and the whole economy stops. This is happening now, as it is spreading to other industry sectors in Thailand. 

Can't sympathise when I'm being kicked out in September.

 

I don't hear anyone in power (or not in power) asking for tourists to stay.

 

Maybe it can come back to life in the next decade.