A freind of mine is a Tour Guide for many years

She says that there are more and more Chinese Tourists every day

Probably because of cheap direct flights into Chiang Mai

Well, the other way around I'd say: Air Asia has more and more direct flights into Chiang Mai from China because of the demand.. Air Asia is not a company that just starts cheap flights somewhere and then hopes for people to go "hey wait, that's affordable; let's go."

Wish they would stick to saner arrival times though. They have flights getting in at 3am.

Around Nimmen there are some posters advertising property (condos, I guess) in Chinese script only. Reminds me of the time I went to Pattaya years ago and saw that all of the menus were now also in Russian.

Around Nimmen I hear more Chinese being spoken on the sidewalks than Thai. It's a good thing as long as they are spending some money.

Yeah, it's one of the most common questions I get from Chinese tourists: Where is "Nimmanhaemin Road?" (And CMU). Along with directions to Big C. Shopping is a major major part of visiting Thailand it seems. That means spending money. And Thais are figuring out rapidly what they want to spend money on. I kind of like that, how quickly the same shops morph into different businesses depending on types of visitors and demand.

They also seem exceptionally well prepared, knowing exactly where they want to go, and they've read up on public transportation and how it works.

Any business that could cater to Chinese and does not do so by not advertising etc in Chinese is a business likely to be going in the wrong direction.

There will be more and more coming, Chiangmai \ Thailand has huge social media attention in the mainland.

As a matter of interest, checking AirAsia today there are return flights to Macau & HK for THB3500 later in the year, Aug,Sept etc.

That's an incredible fare, and goes quite some way to offsetting the accommodation costs if staying in Hong Kong. Cheers for the heads up.

I find it amusing to watch the Chinese tourists visiting the Chinese KMT villages like Mae Salong or Baan Rak Thai above MHS. Mae Salong is humming these days.

Just remember, in the movies the aliens always seem to know English very well!!! Hollywood is very smart.

I hope the Chinese want to learn Thai. In 100-years, maybe the air quality will be good in both places and then many Chinese will spend more time back home. I certainly would spend more time there.....and maybe this Global warming thing will help as well....it does get cold in part of China.

xie xie or boo yaow....thanks and "don't want". or "how chuuu ma"......"is it tasty" or something like that.....

fortunately, there are only 1,234,634 dialects of Chinese.....I spent 30-years learning 239 of them....but only 11 people in the world understand me...

I wonder how many Chinese go into "Mad Dog" expecting some nice tortured dog meat?