Thailand is known to be a beautiful, cheap country with friendly people, good weather and great food. However, northern Thailand is more beautiful, friendlier, cheaper, with nicer food, better weather, and the best place to live ... ever!
Here are some of the reasons why I love living in northern Thailand.
The people
Thailand is known as the “land of the smiles.” You’ll certainly notice as soon as you get off the plane that Thai people seem, well, happier than people from other countries. Thailand is female friendly, gay friendly, family friendly, LGBT friendly, and, well, pretty friendly all round.
However, the further away you get from Bangkok, people become even more friendly (and nothing against BKK, I love it there as well!)
The beauty of the landscape
OK let's get some of my bad photos on Steemit. I regularly go off for motorcycle rides. Sometimes on my own; sometimes with friends.
Here's a couple of them in the above photo where we are near the "Samoeng loop" a 1-2 hour round trip you can do near Chiang Mai.
Now, I love Thailand ...
Here's a photo of love. It's a cafe on the way to Pai. Pai is a smallish town about 150km from Chiang Mai, where I live. It's a great journey there. I like the journey as much as the destination. Ain't that the way it should be?
The food
So, Thailand is known for it's nice, tasty food. But the food from northern Thailand is, er, more authentic.
Yes, they are what you think they are... buggy, pupae, type things. Yum! Here's some Burmese food.
And here's some Thai food.
I forget the same of that fish and the blue flower you eat with it but it's delicious. (Can you tell I'm not a foody?)
And the above looks like a papaya salad which is from the northeastern region, not from the north but, take it from me, the food is great here. I really haven't scratched the surface.
It's cheap
Again, the north is one of the cheapest regions in Thailand. OK, let's talk prices...
You can spend $180-350 on rent here and get perfectly acceptable apartment in a condo near the center of town.
Here are some condos in Jed Yot near the Maya Shopping Center.
And here is a more expensive apartment in Nimman.
Here I'm drinking a beer from Laos not Thailand!
But if that was a Leo or Chang it would cost you a $1 or a little bit more depending on where you buy it from.
And coffee would be less.
And a meal like this:
... in a restaurant could be $1.50-2.
It's cheap.
The weather
Thailand is a tropical country north of the equator. It gets really hot around April. The best time to come is during the winter in the northern hemisphere, so come between September and February/March.
The weather at that time is beautiful up here in northern Thailand. It's high up and hilly so it's not as hot as the rest of the country. And, it never rains at this time.
May through to August is the rainy season. But this also means that it isn't too hot. Now it's July (as far as tourism is concerned it's "low season") and I'm loving the weather here at the moment.
The internet
Someone asked me about this so I should put this in. THE INTERNET IS GREAT HERE. 4G on phones, wifi in the apartments, and cafes, etc., is cheap and pretty fast. Better than the UK where I'm from.
The reason I moved here
I actually came to Chiang Mai because there's a community of internet entrepreneurs living here (I will talk about this more in other posts). And that's great as well. But even though that's why I came. It's not why I stay. I stay for all the other reasons.
Calm Keep, On Steem, and To Thailand Come!