Chiang Mai losing its appeal—how to manage? [long post/discussion]

[3NUMBAS]

the burning puts me off.... my lungs canna take it

[Mac Mickmanus]

10 minutes ago, freedomnow said:

Me too, i just meant generally when it's like a tumbleweed town inside the moat with almost no foreigners it was awful...one extreme to another.

With no foreigners , many shops, restaurants and hotels closed down so it wasn't that it was just no foreigners there , there was not much there at all 

[TravelerEastWest]

On 12/30/2022 at 12:32 AM, worgeordie said:

i have been living here for 35 years , sure there have been many changes , both good and bad,

I would not really like to live anywhere else , it has everything i need , tourists don't bother me,

as I don't react with them .

 

Chiang Mai and Thailand have been very good to me ,I have absolutely nothing to complain about,

too many complainers on here , about Immigration , Banks , other drivers, etc,etc, etc.....as if those

same things did not happen in the West.

 

i will die here and be buried here ....hopefully not for a few more years , I wake up every morning

and most days the sun is shining and it's warm ,  the Toon are doing very well , and I am happy.

it's the simple things in life you should appreciate ,be grateful for what you have , too many people have nowt .

 

regards worgeordie

 

 

 

 

I have only been here around 20 years but basically agree with you.

 

Around 30 years ago I visited Chiang Mai and there was lots of traffic and tourist then also...

[Northstar1]

13 hours ago, thaibeachlovers said:

Millions live in the area ( up north ). They ain't all sick or dying, are they?

Breathing toxic air doesn’t kill immediately Einstein! It takes years!

do yourself a favour and do some research before making a fool of yourself!????

[LaosLover]

I moved to the Nimman area 90 days ago. I love it to death; probably the densest and best collection of mid-priced restaurants in the world. Tons of amenities like yoga, massage, etc. .

 

My rent in a very lux condo is $600, which is a deal to be in so central a location. So much so that I'll just write off the smokey 3 months and head back to the states. A lot of people agree with me; any condo rental gets booked in a single day on the market in my building. Very hard to get a lease less than a year.

 

Tourist-wise, it packs out on the weekends with Bangkok partiers here for the ganga scene and a smattering of snowbirds and backpackers. There are urgent signs in my lobby urging me to turn Air B+B-ers in. They're about 80% of the the people I see in the elevator. They're the only people who use the pool.

 

I like being in a place with lots of diff kinds of people, and that's usually a party kind of place (see also: French Quarter, Soho, Greenwich Village). The snowbirds I see on my morning cappuccino run are respectful Thai-maniacs like myself.

 

4 minutes away from my cappuccino, there's a tin roof place selling 40 baht Khao Soi noodles among big banana trees. Even down by the night market, you can easily find side soi's with a sole proprietor papaya pounding station that feels like you're far away from modernity -even within any given 100 meters in the well-visited Old City. Compare CM to a place like Florence and it feels much more alive.

 

As to crossing Nimman Road on foot, I hate it but can offer the following advice: wait for a break in the traffic on your side and cross to the middle. Now you're the problem of the other oncoming traffic lane.

 

Remember the cold, Darwinian Thai pedestrian logic: the bigger and more lethal the vehicle coming towards you, the less likely they are to stop for you. Play chicken with a Honda, but not with a songthew. Particularly not with a songthew.

[ThLT]

1 hour ago, LaosLover said:

I moved to the Nimman area 90 days ago. I love it to death; probably the densest and best collection of mid-priced restaurants in the world. Tons of amenities like yoga, massage, etc. .

 

My rent in a very lux condo is $600, which is a deal to be in so central a location. So much so that I'll just write off the smokey 3 months and head back to the states. A lot of people agree with me; any condo rental gets booked in a single day on the market in my building. Very hard to get a lease less than a year.

 

Tourist-wise, it packs out on the weekends with Bangkok partiers here for the ganga scene and a smattering of snowbirds and backpackers. There are urgent signs in my lobby urging me to turn Air B+B-ers in. They're about 80% of the the people I see in the elevator. They're the only people who use the pool.

 

I like being in a place with lots of diff kinds of people, and that's usually a party kind of place (see also: French Quarter, Soho, Greenwich Village). The snowbirds I see on my morning cappuccino run are respectful Thai-maniacs like myself.

 

4 minutes away from my cappuccino, there's a tin roof place selling 40 baht Khao Soi noodles among big banana trees. Even down by the night market, you can easily find side soi's with a sole proprietor papaya pounding station that feels like you're far away from modernity -even within any given 100 meters in the well-visited Old City. Compare CM to a place like Florence and it feels much more alive.

 

As to crossing Nimman Road on foot, I hate it but can offer the following advice: wait for a break in the traffic on your side and cross to the middle. Now you're the problem of the other oncoming traffic lane.

 

Remember the cold, Darwinian Thai pedestrian logic: the bigger and more lethal the vehicle coming towards you, the less likely they are to stop for you. Play chicken with a Honda, but not with a songthew. Particularly not with a songthew.

Sounds like you're genuinely enjoying it here (not just just trying to milk the place). Have a great time. Happy New Year.

[LaosLover]

Yeah, my wife calls Nimman Miami Historic district (old buildings, tropical plants) for a fifth the money. We're enrolling in Thai language school and are here for good.

 

Don't know if I'm allowed to recco a specific real estate agent, who's name may or may not be googleable with the number 66 in it, but I had a great experience renting here. Much hand-holding and explaining. Landlord pays their fee.

 

When I lost my key card, the agent drove me to the police statement to fill out a theft report to get a new one from the condo office (a new rule). That excellent, fluent English-speaking agent may have been named Diana.

[roo860]

8 minutes ago, LaosLover said:

Yeah, my wife calls Nimman Miami Historic district (old buildings, tropical plants) for a fifth the money. We're enrolling in Thai language school and are here for good.

 

Don't know if I'm allowed to recco a specific real estate agent, who's name may or may not be googleable with the number 66 in it, but I had a great experience renting here. Much hand-holding and explaining. Landlord pays their fee.

 

When I lost my key card, the agent drove me to the police statement to fill out a theft report to get a new one from the condo office (a new rule). That excellent, fluent English-speaking agent may have been named Diana.

I'm just up the road at the Phucome Intersection, Canal Rd. Had my condo for 18yrs, great location. 

[bhatmasterson]

You've been here almost half a decade? That's less than 2 years. The only changes you've seen are what happens when a popular holiday destination wakes up from a pandemic that has lasted about as long as you've been here. I think you are really going to have stuff to complain about come April!

 

[BritManToo]

On 12/31/2022 at 11:01 PM, Northstar1 said:

Breathing toxic air doesn’t kill immediately Einstein! It takes years!

do yourself a favour and do some research before making a fool of yourself!????

Yeah, but no problem for us old folk, we'll be dead long before the bad air kills us.

[thaibeachlovers]

On 12/31/2022 at 9:39 PM, sqwakvfr said:

I have stayed in CNX for one main reason:  The Cost of living and medical/dental is very low. 

Ditto. Having recently split from the wife and the family home it was the cheapest place with good facilities. I didn't want hot girls, so that wasn't an issue ( if I had wanted I'd have gone to live in Pattaya ).

A very nice hotel room all included ( except meals ) was 15,000 a month.  Gekkos restaurant short walk away for reasonably priced meals, Pantip just up the road for DVDs ( English language tv channel was rubbish ). Central Airport had a free transport service, to go see movies, friendly travel agent next door for local trips,

I could have lived there for rest of life if I could have got the pension in LOS.

[thaibeachlovers]

On 1/1/2023 at 4:07 PM, LaosLover said:

My rent in a very lux condo is $600, which is a deal to be in so central a location.

I wish posters would use baht. It's not whatever country one comes from that uses $ ( ie not just the US ) and exchange rates change.

I'd be interested in how much you were paying for the place, but no idea what $600 is in baht, given I have no idea of which country's $ it is.

[thaibeachlovers]

On 1/10/2023 at 2:49 PM, bhatmasterson said:

You've been here almost half a decade? That's less than 2 years.

You've been here almost half a decade? That's less than 5 years.

 

Fixed it for you.

[bhatmasterson]

On 1/13/2023 at 5:56 AM, thaibeachlovers said:

You've been here almost half a decade? That's less than 5 years.

 

Fixed it for you.

Hold on. Isn't a decade 10 years? "Almost half a decade"? Half a decade is 5 years. Almost half would be less than 2.5 years? He did say almost half a decade didn't he? I never was that great at math :-)

[roo860]

I caught on one of the Thai news channels about a tourist who videod what looked like cockroaches in the seating area at the airport. 

Not good for PR.

[1happykamper]

On 12/31/2022 at 9:07 PM, LaosLover said:

Even down by the night market, you can easily find side soi's with a sole proprietor papaya pounding station that feels like you're far away from modernity -even within any given 100 meters in the well-visited Old City. Compare CM to a place like Florence and it feels much more alive.

Morning! Great comments except for.... The quote... Can you please translate this into English? 

[ttkeric]

Adding my POV to the OP... in my case, my coping mechanisms are my priorities, namely my wife and  my kids. I came to Chiang Mai in 2015 and by the 3rd month, it completely lost its lustre for me, if it had any in the first place! Before I even set foot here, my opinion of CM was "boring". Since moving here, I changed it to "boring, at time infuriating". My 2 main gripes are Thai driving (terrible) and Thai food (absolutely terrible).

 

Still, what keeps me going are my wife and my kids. 

 

[Paul Catton]

On 1/22/2023 at 2:34 PM, roo860 said:

I caught on one of the Thai news channels about a tourist who videod what looked like cockroaches in the seating area at the airport. 

Not good for PR.

Live snacks, bonus!

The prepped rats ready for grilling at a rural market was a little more off-putting.

Chiang Mai and Thailand in general, lost significant appeal for me this trip.

It's redeeming feature was the side trip to Vietnam which was a lot worse.

 

 

[SuperSilverHaze]

It never had any appeal to me after my first visit in 92. The architecture is different.

 

It's dusty, smoky, hot.

 

 

Only appeal is for broke retirees. I'm not keen on Pattaya but I'd rather live even there and subjecting my wife to that circus as well than live upcountry.

 

South Thailand, Bangkok