What to do in Chiang Mai
 

I will be visiting Chiang Mai for about one day in April.
What would be the most important acvitity to do in such a short period of time?

Will you have a full-day? We were in Chiang Mai for a few days, but in one day managed to:

- Visit a snake farm
- Ride elephants
- Go to the Baan Tawaay Market
- Have a custom suit made
- Shop at the Night Market

If you have a good driver (we hired one for about 800 baht for the day), it should be no problem getting around to all these places easily!

Ideally, a driver is the way to go but on my last visit I found a one day package, widely available that included riding elephants, visit to butterfly and orchid farm, visit to the waterfalls and lunch for about $30. It was wonderful and a great value and they picked me up at the hotel. You are back to your hotel in the afternoon. Don't miss the night market and for sure try the guava juice. There is free entertainment there as well. Another activity was Thai kickboxing. I missed it and was sorry I did. I heard it was fantastic!

I agree hire a driver for the day,let him show you the sights,the elephant show is a little pricey but if you have not ridden one before give it a shot,you will have drivers approach you on the street I paid $20-$25 the last couple of times just agree on how long you have his services usually 7-8 hrs,buy him lunch if hes a good guy

What about hiring a driver to go and see the tribal villages and return to Chiang Mai late evening and go to the Bazaar night market?

I have already done Elephant rides in Bali.

There are some tribal villages, but most are up north in Chiang Rai. Those are the most interesting.

You can go up into the mountain and see the summer King's palace. I can't remember the name for the life of me.

The night bazaar is amazing. Here's a tip. Thais love to bargain. Go early! It's believed by many Thai merchants if they cannot make their first sale, then they will be unlucky for the day/night. Now this doesn't mean you can get away with a super cheap price on their first sale, but you can get a really good discount. My sister will usually tell me I could have gotten it lower, however, I just tell her that they need to make a living too and I'm not hurting that bad. Most of the fun shopping in Thailand is the bargaining. My sister and I have almost perfected our routine, which my mom says is amusing. You can always walk away, knowing that they may give a little more of a discount and run after you. ;)

Enjoy! That's close to my hometown, Lampang.

The elephant riding is of good quality in Chang Mai. Keep in mind that the tour I went on was 1/2 sales promotion. The ox cart, raft ride and elephant rides were fine. The elephant dung paper factory, orchard farm and such were just sales pitches for the most part.

I took another elephant ride in Phuket and it was of bad quality, although they did let me daughter ride on the elephants head for a bit.

You can find some decent deals in the night market, but I still found the Weekend market in Bangkok to have a much greater selection and better prices.