Tours in Chiang Mai

Walk out of your guesthouse in the old town early and you will smell it before you see it: charcoal, grilled pork, sweet soy, and somewhere a pot of khao soi coming to the boil. Chiang Mai is a city you learn on foot, or from the back of a red songthaew, with a moat running around the centre in a neat square and the old gates still standing at the corners.

Inside that square, temples are on almost every other lane. Wat Chedi Luang is the one with the great ruined chedi, and Wat Phra Singh is the one locals tend to point you towards for its calm and its carved wooden halls. Go in the late afternoon, when the monks are chanting and the heat has dropped. Outside the walls, the Sunday walking street and the night markets turn whole roads over to food stalls and handicrafts, and Nimmanhaemin is where the cafes and young crowd gather.

Then look west. The mountain behind the city is Doi Suthep, and the temple near its top, Wat Phra That Doi Suthep, is the one most people mean when they say they went up to the mountain. The road winds through forest, the air cools, and you finish with a climb up the long naga staircase, where the gold stupa waits at the top. From the terrace the city spreads out flat below you, and on a clear day you can pick out the moat and the airport road.

Higher in the national park, Hmong communities have lived on these slopes for generations, and a village visit gives you a look at the textiles, embroidery and everyday life that make the hills feel like a different country from the old town. Doi Suthep and the village fit neatly into a morning, which leaves your afternoon free for a cooking class, an elephant sanctuary, or a long lunch back in the lanes. Want a temple or a neighbourhood we do not list yet? Ask, and a local guide can take it on.