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TOURS & ACTIVITIES
Sightseeing
& other activities
Shopping tours
Shopping outlets in Chiang Mai
Soft adventure tours
Golf
Spa's and health retreats
Medical and dental services
The city has numerous temples, museums and places of interest . Track of the Tiger can provide standard or customised tour programmes for your group. Ask us for a copy of our sightseeing list that covers over 100 attractions in 5 categories.
Other activities include:
Thai cooking courses.
Thai massage courses.
Thai arts and crafts courses - textile weaving, pottery etc.
Introduction to Buddhist meditation.
Yoga instruction.
Tai Chi instruction.
Volunteer work assisting the disenfranchised.
Community development projects.
Chiang Mai is a 'bargain hunters' paradise. We can organise either standard tours to include one or more of the 5 shopping attractions shown below, or we can arrange 'bargain hunter programmes' for small groups (1-9) using the publication 'Chiang Mai's Shopping Secrets' as an information resource to plan your group shopping itinerary.
Shopping outlets in Chiang Mai
Long before tourism was established as an industry Chiang Mai was an important inland trading post, a crossroads where goods from Burma, India and China were traded (a little more needed here)
In the late 1960's, fuelled by the trekking driven tourist boom the market for handicrafts started. The Chinese landlords in the city centre starting renting out ground space to the women of San Khampaeng.
The women would bring in product from the village craftsmen, lay it out on bamboo mats, and sell it to the visiting tourists. The product range consisted of a limited selection of silverware, teak handicrafts, woven silk and cotton, lacquer ware, Celadon, umbrellas, cane ware and brass temple bells. This was the start of the night bazaar as we know it today.
Chiang Mai Art, a shop located outside the moat near Chiang Mai Gate was the only early exporter of handicrafts. It closed in the 1970's when heroin was discovered in elephant tusks packed for shipment.
Eventually, seeking volume, buyers found their way to the workshops of San Khampaeng, and the export trade was established. These workshops were replaced by factories, and showrooms were built.
Today, the shopping attractions of the city have expanded and fall into 5 different categories:
1. The export showrooms of Sankhampaeng, and handicraft areas of Borsang & Ban Tawai).
The product is varied; teak wood furniture, rattan, celadon & ceramics, bronze goods, silk, umbrellas, handicrafts etc., and some of the showrooms have 'demonstration displays' to showcase their 'cottage industry' origins.
Revenues come mainly from export with perhaps 5-10% of income coming from sales to visiting tourists. Quality of product varies, and sales prices do not reflect the fact that the purchased item has to be shipped to the buyers home, often on an LCL (less than container load) basis. In many cases, the particular product is perhaps now available in Europe or the USA at competitive rates.
If the buyer can find something they feel is unique, negotiate for more favourable pricing, and can obtain a good shipping deal from a freight consolidator, then 'shopping bargains' can still be found.
2. The night bazaar.
A collection of sidewalk and roadside moveable stalls, fronting plazas filled with regular stalls, shops and boutiques.
Goods range from fake watches, T-shirts and brand name goods to silk, wood carvings, handicrafts and reproduction antiques.
Definitely aimed at the mass-market tourist, it is a hive of activity and noise where throngs of shoppers constantly jostle each other and vendors for non-existant footpath space.
3. The walking street.
A new phenomenon recently introduced to the city sees the establishment of 'walking streets' on Sundays. Designated streets are closed off to motorised traffic for the day and vendors display their goods on mats spread out on the pavement.
The atmosphere is 'fair ground' like, food stands are a part of the attraction, the range of goods expanding rapidly, and the prices for goods on sale are reminiscent of an earlier time.
4. The boutique style outlet.
In the last few years, and as a direct result of the recovering economy, the more affluent middle and upper class Thai's have been spending heavily on redecorating old, or furnishing and decorating new and/or second homes.
Boutiques catering to this demand have sprung up in enclaves all around Chiang Mai. Offering innovative designs, high quality, and the 'one of a kind', or limited edition items across a broad range of home d?cor product that bargain hunters love, the Chiang Mai boutiques are fast becoming known as 'the place to shop'.
Prices are almost 50% lower than those of Bangkok, and 3 to 5 times cheaper than those of the USA, UK, Europe or Japan.
5. The department stores.
Thailand's department stores sell a wide range of top class products at much lower prices than the same product is sold for in Europe of the USA. Priced as they are for the local and not the tourist market, visitors may well find that special item they have always wanted but did not buy because of the price.
The major department stores in Chiang Mai have an added attraction. They have areas dedicated to showcasing the northern Thai or La Na handicraft product, and more have more recently expanded their product range buy incorporating the O.T.O.P. range. O.T.O.P. (one tambon, one product) is a government sponsored initiative. It is aimed at getting each community or group of rural villages to specialise in the 'cottage industry' production of handicrafts that their areas are renowned for.
Prices are very reasonable and product range and quality are increasing all the time.
There are a wide range of options, and programmes can be put together from the list below to include more than one of them, in either a half, full, or multi-day programme packages.
· Elephant riding.
· Oxcart rides.
· Bamboo rafting.
· Mountain biking.
· White water rafting.
· Bungee jumping.
· 4WD excursions.
· Nature trails.
· Geotourism options - agro-tourism outings, community development
project visits etc.
· ATV vehicle trips.
· Off road motorcycle trips.
· Microlight flying.
· Rock climbing.
· Visits to ethnic minority groups.
There are some 7 golf courses of varying difficulty and standard in the Chiang Mai area. Pricing and caddy charges for a round of 18 holes is very reasonable compared with other courses in the region. Golf club hire is available as well as transfers to and from the golf courses.
The spa and health retreat business in Chiang Mai is enjoying excellent growth. Again standards vary as does pricing, but there is something to suit all budgets and with few exceptions local spas and health retreats are definitely excellent value for money.
Medical and dental services
Medical and dental services in Thailand are enjoying a boom in popularity with overseas patients discovering that standards are high, waiting lists are short, and pricing is sometimes less that a quarter of what the same procedure would cost in Europe or the USA.
Medical and dental services in Chiang Mai enjoy a price advantage over those in Bangkok, and companies like our own Track of the Tiger T.R.D. specialise in offering potential clients a short list of several hospital/dental clinic options to choose from, and provide 'liaison' between the patient and the service provider before and during treatment.
There are a number of speciality clinics in Chiang Mai covering cosmetic surgery, hair restoration, infertility etc.
There are also specialists in Chinese medicine, acupuncture and a range of other Eastern medicine practices.
Enquiries to
tiger@loxinfo.co.th.
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