Chiang Mai Markets

The Night Market and Sunday Market, are Chiang Mai primary markets, both of which have been held in the same locations for hundreds of years. The markets in Chiang Mai makes the Chiang Rai Night Bazaar look like a kid’s juice stand –there really isn’t a comparison.

We Christmas shopping for my family, found clothing, beautiful Thai Scarves and shoes in my size, found a coffee press for less than 350 baht (amazing!).

Generally, I am scared of Thai vendors and their agressive behaviour. The price of everything is up for negotiation, which sounds really cool but can be really annoying. Do I really want to spend 2 minutes of my life haggling 30 cents off the price of toothpaste? No, but I do it anyway because if I go to a chain store where the prices are fixed I will pay 13x the price charged at the market stall.

Here vendors have to be aggressive because they are all competing with the same 3 miles stretch of other vendors selling the exact same items. At home, I avoid stores where I know clerks will be all over me, but here it is all slowly starting to fade into a normal rhythm.