It was past midnight and the open-air acoustic place set up at Ploen Ruedee Night Market where I was hanging out with a friend started to close down—so did the other nearby establishments. The once-lively stalls lining Chang Klan Road leading to Chiang Mai Night Bazaar were almost devoid of pedestrians and shoppers. Earlier in the night, I met up with a friend, Valerie, who was also traveling in Chiang Mai. After a couple of rounds of Singha beers, we were joined by friends she had met in Myanmar: Feven, a beautiful girl with braided hair from Ethiopia; Colorado native Michael; and the pretty Puerto Rican, Gisele.
Northern Thai Vibe: Midnight Beats and Ancient Arts in Chiang Mai
Chiang Mai After Midnight
“I know a place so bad it is so good—it is called Zoe in Yellow, let’s go there,” Michael told us in a commanding gesture. The four of us huddled into a tuk-tuk and went on our way. While en route, I whiled the time away humming the last song played at Ploen Ruedee: a beautiful mash-up of Bob Dylan’s “Knocking on Heaven’s Door” sung to the tune of Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Sweet Home Alabama” by a talented local band.
The nightlife in Chiang Mai was on the verge of shutting down immediately after the clock hit midnight. Zoe in Yellow turned out to be the same. One last order of alcohol did not appear to be enough to bookend my second night out in that city. With perseverance, we found ourselves a still-open club called Spicy. We crawled inside the crowded dance floor like a centipede. Swarming with locals and foreigners alike, the place vibrated with a pulsating energy that made myself—who was an oblivious person to dance music—strut my body a bit.
I felt a set of hands scratching my back gently—which reminisced the sensation of the Thai massage I had had in Bangkok a few days earlier. I turned around to see a beaming lady-boy. “Welcome,” she yelled out. I nodded my head at her as she turned her attention to other club newcomers. From the corner of my eye, I saw Valerie, Feven, and Michael surveying the floor while Gisele looked and smiled at me. “This place is wild,” she told me. The place uncorked into another level once the DJ played a Justin Bieber song, with the crowd either loving the song or playing along with the hilarity of it.
At half-past one in the morning, the place totally shunted into a closing-time vibe. As I bid Valerie and my new friends good night and boarded a tuk-tuk back to my hotel, I realized, among other things, that the nightlife in Chiang Mai was just a tiny blip in the otherwise more fascinating appeal of that charm-filled city brimming with history, culture, heritage, and a laid-back atmosphere.
During the nights when I was a part of a revelry-hunting party, the rest of the days of our five-day trip to Chiang Mai were filled with discovery, learning, and realizing why the city was fast becoming a favorite of travelers and digital nomads alike.
Exploring Chiang Mai’s Art and Cultural Scene
Heritage houses and quirky hole-in-the-walls crowding the side streets of Chiang Mai were made more appealing because of the bursting inventiveness of the arts scene in the city. Exploring that interesting aspect of Chiang Mai made up the most of our itinerary.
On our second day, we visited the farming neighborhood of Ban Rai Kong King and learned the local tradition of organic farming and the art of preparing and cooking traditional Northern Thailand dishes. Our party of nine was divided into three groups, and we took turns learning to organize the ingredients and cook the following dishes: Green Curry with Chicken, Kai Pam (roasted omelet grilled inside banana leaves), Khanon Jok (steamed coconut pumpkin dough wrapped in a banana leaf pyramid), and Butterfly Pea Drink.
The locals also taught us their other cultural practices of making herbal balls and Pandan Leaf Rosettes (a leaf-flower bouquet). Capping our chill-down afternoon was a soothing Yum Kang fire therapy massage, which was said to be a traditional Lanna massage.
We also visited Bor Sang Village, where the locals carried on the long-standing custom of umbrella making that was started many centuries ago by a visiting monk from Myanmar. The intricate process involved the elaborate application of hand-painted art over materials made of silk, oil paper, and bamboo. As I walked around and inspected each artist creating sketches on each umbrella, my attention was quickly drawn to the colorful umbrellas that were laid out on the lawn to dry under the sun. The wonderful mesh of blooming colors instantly created an eye-popping visual mirroring the fine art perfected by the craftsmen of Bor Sang Village.
More local arts immersion comprised the rest of our day as we dropped by the silk-producing town of Sankampaeng. Artisans deeply engrossed in the creations of Thai silks, silverware, lacquerware, woodcarvings, and gems welcomed us to watch the progression of the conceptions of their art.
We concluded our arts and cultural probe of Chiang Mai at the Baan Kang Wat Artists’ Village, where modish shop houses fusing traditional and modern Thai architecture stood charmingly over well-landscaped grounds.
Vaulting From One Temple to the Next
No trip to Chiang Mai, and probably to most cities in Thailand, was complete without going temple hopping. Tucked within the residential and commercial establishments inside the old section of the city were pockets of temples that carried historical significance to the religion of Buddhism.
We started our Riverside Heritage tour with a slow stride over the Saphan Nawarat Bridge that took us to Charoenrat Road and into the first Christian Church in Chiang Mai as we passed by some beautiful old shop houses leading to Warorot Market. An hour later, we arrived at Wat Ket Karam, an over 500-year-old temple located in the middle of a small, quaint neighborhood. The adjacent old house dishing traditional Thai architecture arrested my attention, and we ended up taking photographs at its picturesque balcony.
As Chiang Mai was known to be besieged beautifully by an abundance of temples, we only visited a few more temples within the city that day because of pressing time. My personal favorite was Wat Sri Suphan, a stunning silver temple situated in the Wualai silver-making district.
Glistening under the bright, torrid rays of the sun, the temple conveyed the peculiar artisanship involved in its creation. Stellar engravings and rich textures were visible among the silverware plastered over the interior walls of the temple. An odd rule banning the entry of women inside that temple was explained by an English sign found outside: “Beneath the base of Ubosotha in the monastic boundary, many precious things, incantations, amulets and other holy objects were buried 500 years ago. Entering inside the place may deteriorated the place or otherwise the lady herself. According to this Lanna Belief, ladies are not allowed to enter the Ubosotha.”
A day of temple runs around Chiang Mai proved not enough as we still missed a string of other interesting temples. “Oh well, chalk this up to the many reasons to go back to Chiang Mai in the near future,” I thought to myself.
Thai Food-Tripping and Night Market Finds
Before traveling to Chiang Mai, I had talked to some fellow travel writers who had spent extended periods in that city. Most of them swore by the allure of the many cool cafes, sumptuous food places, and trendy joints perfect for harvesting creativity, especially in writing. “There is this Chiang Mai feel that certainly attracts the interest of digital nomads to stay longer,” I read once in a Facebook travel group.
While a few days of gorging around town and sampling authentic Northern Thai cuisines gave me a taste of the food culture of Chiang Mai, I remembered coming back home to Manila madly missing that kick of spice, richness of taste, and colorful texture of Chiang Mai food. Every meal during the duration of our brief five-day trip around Chiang Mai was certainly something to look forward to. Whether we were dining in a river-side joint or having a formal dinner aboard a cruise over the River Mae Ping, each bite and sinking my fork into a plateful of a variety of local cuisines proved more than a satisfying gastronomical experience.
After satisfying our taste buds and belly to the hilt during daytime, nighttime—just before party time—was often spent pursuing interesting finds at the night markets. Aside from the aforementioned Ploen Ruedee Night Market, Warorot Market, and Chiang Mai Night Bazaar, pockets of weekend markets were set up near the old city walls.
A Glimpse of Chiang Mai Leaves Me Wanting More
Even though I left Chiang Mai with a new set of travel experiences and a new group of friends, on our last night, our whole group bonded over bottles of wine: myself, Jamie, Tim, Aleah, Liza, Edgar, Melo, Fannie, and Len—all thankful for the good karma that had brought us all together on that short trip to Chiang Mai.
I saw myself coming back in the near future. Who knew I might be one of those digital nomads that would sit in a café for hours while I tried to harvest my writing mojo—sipping a Thai coffee and amassing all the inspiration that came with residing in Chiang Mai—a place that abounded with rich history and a fascinating culture dating back to many centuries ago and was then welded ideally with modern times.
