This market is not for the claustrophobic or the enochlophobic. Once you step into the crowd, it’s like being caught in a current. You just have to travel with the crowd and go with the flow. If you want to look stop, step well over to the side, otherwise you’ll probably get trodden on. Penetrating back into the crowd can be quite difficult too, but it’s all worth it to see this quirky market. It’s impossible to get anywhere fast, so be patient and enjoy it.
The market is full of hundreds of different stalls. It’s so big you can walk down one row, then at the end find there are three more rows to walk down. A lot of things you will keep seeing like the elephant pants, ponchos and Thai fishermen pants but every now and then you will see something very unique/bizarre.
I don’t think these two were too happy to be modelling but they were definitely well behaved. The one on the left had just been in five different selfies so I think he’d had enough of photos.
My favourite was watching this man create animals from glass. It was fascinating and he did it so easily it looked effortless. I was going to buy a few pieces but seeing as I have another seven weeks until we fly home, I’m not sure they would survive the journey. Hopefully I can find something similar in Bangkok as that’s where we fly from.
Whilst walking a long the markets we saw a lot of charity work. There was one team of barbers cutting hair for free in honour their late King. All donations went to the local children’s school.
There was also another charity which focuses on the health of the street dogs in Chiang Mai. For a donation you can spend some time petting the two dogs and cat that were there.
Of course we donated.
What was especially great about this market was the temples you pass on your way through. Of course you can’t go in, but to be shopping right next to them was a real experience. My phone’s photos don’t do it much justice, but the gold lit up in the night was brilliant.
After buying Mitch some miniature ice creams, we got back into the stream of people and headed back to our bike. Just in time as well as it absolutely poured down. We had to take refuge in KFC and buy a couple of 20baht ponchos from 7 eleven, as we left ours at home – doh!
THE BLOG OF TRAVEL 
Lovely to hear you donated to the street dogs. Lovely!!
LikeLike
I’m going to their dogs home on Saturday to meet the dogs too 😆 I wanted to volunteer but you have to of had a recent rabies shot and I’ve never had one! I’m a little dog mad xx
LikeLiked by 1 person
Great. I just adopted two little ones yesterday. Absolutely gorgeous. They were surrendered by their family who didn’t want them. Two days in and they are just gorgeous. Five and six years old.
LikeLike
That’s brilliant. How are they settling in? My Dad has a rottweiler/boxer at home and she was surrendered for the second time. He wasn’t going to get another dog but couldn’t say no to her. She was a little nervous at first but now lives like a princess and loves it 🙂 She is also head over heels for my dad ha ha!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Oh how lovely to hear of your lovely and kind dad and his furry baby. Mine are going well. So loving. Asleep on the lounge now and already know can’t come up unless the blanket is put out in the lounge. Tonight I fell in love with them.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Loved reading this. It took me back to when we visited Thailand in 2011. Chiang Mai was on the list, but we never made it there as decided to visit the River Kwai instead. Enjoy the rest of your travels and good luck with finding the glass animals.
LikeLiked by 1 person
You can probably get the same stuff from the street markets in Bangkok so no worries.
LikeLike
Oh good! I will probably come back to the UK with 20 pieces now ha ha 🙂
LikeLike
Check out Chatuchak weekend market in Bangkok. It’s supposedly the world’s largest weekend market. You can literally get lost in there.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Will do, thanks!
LikeLike
Emily,
Always looks like fun. Yeah, pictures don’t always capture the real experience.
Thanks,
Gary
On Tue, Oct 10, 2017 at 10:17 PM The Blog of Travel wrote:
> Emily posted: “This market is not for the claustrophobic or the > enochlophobic. Once you step into the crowd, it’s like being caught in a > current. You just have to travel with the crowd and go with the flow. If > you want to look stop, step well over to the side, otherwise” >
LikeLiked by 2 people
Great post, loved all your highlights. Those little dogs!
LikeLiked by 2 people
Hi Emily,
we went to Chiang Mai very short this time so had not gone to night-market.
I can feel how fun you are from you blog. ^_^
Thank you for visiting my blog as well.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thank you for dropping by my blogsite. I don’t get to see much of Chiang Mai now, now that I have been living in The Netherlands. Our summer home is near Chiang Mai university and much has changed since my last visit. The night Bazaar is more crowded and new things keep popping up like those “foot spa” using tiny fishes to “clean” your feet :-D. Glad you enjoyed your trip!
LikeLiked by 1 person