Northern Thailand
Discover Northern Thailand
Introduction
Northern Thailand is mountains and river valleys, cooler and greener than the rest of the country, and it was a separate kingdom until barely a century ago. Lanna — the kingdom of a million rice fields — ruled from Chiang Mai from 1296, and its temples, its dialect and its food are all recognisably distinct from the central Thai versions.
Chiang Mai sits in a valley ringed by hills, with a moated square old town of more than thirty temples inside it and Doi Suthep on the ridge above. Chiang Rai, further north, is the gateway to the Golden Triangle where Thailand, Laos and Myanmar meet on the Mekong, and to the tea and coffee hills around Mae Salong. Between them are Pai, Mae Hong Son and the switchback roads that connect them.
Several ethnic minority peoples — Akha, Lisu, Lahu, Hmong, Karen — live in the uplands, with their own languages and textiles, and visiting responsibly means choosing community-run operators rather than the hill-tribe tours that treat villages as attractions. The cool season from November to February is the best time by a wide margin; March and April bring the agricultural burning that fills the valleys with smoke and pushes air quality to some of the worst readings in the world.