Chiang Rai and Chiang Mai
CHIANG RAI — The better of the two but still no love story
CHIANG RAI — The better
The Good
- Hotel: Excellent. Calm, spacious, relaxing. Did its job properly.
- Saturday Night Market: Genuinely fun, great food, good energy.
- Value: Street food and local meals still deliver — no complaints there.
- Fitness & downtime: Easy to slow things down, reset, and breathe.
The Meh
- Elephant experience: Fine. Ordinary. Done it before, nothing special.
- Tourist attractions: Overpriced and underwhelming.
- Town itself: Functional, not charming.
Verdict on Chiang Rai:
A solid 7/10 if you keep it short, don’t over-plan, and manage expectations.
CHIANG MAI — WHERE IT ALL FELL APART
The Resort (Veranda Resort)
Let’s not dance around this.
- Architecture: Brutalist concrete monolith dumped into a beautiful jungle. A visual crime scene.
- Room: Old, tired, shabby.
- Service:
- Housekeeping: great.
- Pool staff: clueless.
- Restaurant staff: catastrophic.
- Food: 0/10. Not exaggerating. Absolute rubbish at premium prices.
- Price: ~$330 AUD a night — completely unjustifiable.
The only saving grace:
The pool area — calming, beautiful, and the only reason to be there.
Final score:
3/10 on a good day. 1/10 on principle.
The City
- Old Town: Underwhelming.
- Driving around: Flat, uninspiring, traffic-heavy.
- Markets: Fine — but nothing you haven’t seen across Thailand.
- Spas & massages: Laughably overpriced (3,500–4,000 baht).
When you’re used to 400–600 baht for excellent treatments elsewhere, it just kills the mood. This is not a village escape. It’s a city of over a million people, and it feels like it.
The Reality Check
This one’s on me. I didn’t do my homework properly. I romanticised a childhood image of Chiang Mai that no longer exists — or maybe never did.
I expected elephants wandering through villages. I got traffic, concrete, inflated prices, and tourist funnels.
THE LOUNGES & AIRPORTS (ADDING SALT TO THE WOUND)
- Royal Orchid Lounge (Chiang Rai): Staff = excellent. Lounge itself = rabbit warren disappointment.
- Chiang Mai Airport: Dull, tired, uninspiring.
By this point, patience was gone.
THE HIGHLIGHTS (YES, THERE WERE A FEW)
- Buying beautiful lanterns for my new home in Koh Samui
- Fitness, sun, and a few calm moments by the pool
- Knowing I was leaving
FINAL VERDICT — NORTHERN THAILAND
This entire stretch — Chiang Rai to Chiang Mai — was hugely underwhelming for me. Too much hype. Too little soul. Too expensive for what you get.
If I could redo it? I’d have stayed in Bangkok, then flown straight to Koh Samui.
WHAT’S NEXT
One night at the airport Hyatt in Bangkok — and then… KOH SAMUI.
And honestly? I cannot wait. Sometimes travel reminds you what you love. Sometimes it reminds you what you absolutely don’t. This was the latter.
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