For authentic, good value and delicious food, head to the top floor of the Chiang Mai Airport Plaza. There's an excellent food court where you can get light meals freshly cooked for 30-50 THB ($1-$2) in addition to a range of quality restaurants which are very popular with the locals. Most tourists eat around the night bazaar or downtown but the food is more authentic and it's much better value where the locals eat - at the Airport Plaza.

www.centralplaza.co.th
Pa Daet, Mueang Chiang Mai, Chiang Mai 50100, Thailand
Google map: bit.ly/oh3g2c

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This is the best tourist map of Chiang Mai and I recommend this above any other map or guidebook. It is especially good if you want to SHOP!.
It is available from major bookstores in Bangkok. If you want to buy it before you leave it might be difficult to find. The only place I have found is www.tripneeds.com. They seem to have other maps of Thailand as well.

www.tripneeds.com/

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Everyone likes to do some bargain shopping. In Chiang Mai, the night market is almost a “must see” place. But, if you can, save all your shopping for the Sunday market. When I was there (January - April 2004), it operated almost every Sunday. It is open from noon to late night.

It's just outside the Thai Pat Gate. The Nerve Touch Massage Studio is near the Gate entrance. You will be surprised what you can buy there

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It is a lesser know local market that is created on Saturday nights by closing a street just out of Chiang Mai gate. It is open from about 5pm till 11pm and has lots of unique items that are only found there.

The real treat is that it is for locals more than westerners so you can people watch and enjoy the Thai people without being hassled by vendors like at a night bazaar but they have enough English to get understood.

It is not so big that you feel lost or overcrowded but enough to fill the evening with things to see.
Many of the local day stores are open late from shops selling handmade silver to a wedding boutique that has Thai and western wedding dresses - so lots to see.

Wualai road in the heart of the Silver treet area, just outside the Chiang Mai gate.

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