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When visiting Thailand, it is best to leave your handcrafts and souvenir shopping for Chiang Mai. The wide variety and cheap prices makes it a shoppers' paradise. Many trade buyers make Chiang Mai their preferred destination for Thai products such as antiques, Buddhist art, lacquer, silk, silver, clothing, rattan, ceramics and items of home décor.
The most popular shopping is at the Night Bazaar, which comes up along Chang Klan Road every evening and consists of innumerable pavement stalls as also permanent shops in shopping arcades.
Chiang Mai has also seen the emergence of several upmarket shops, selling contemporary Thai home decor items. Although pricy, these offer modern designs in better quality. These can be found in the centre of the town, along with boutiques, shoe shops, jewellers and antique shops.
If you ae looking to buy handicrafts in wholesale, you can visit the many wholesellers situated on Kamphaeng Road. Also visit Bann Tawai to the south of the city, the busy carving center as also a great selection of antiques.
Getting around Chiang Mai is very easy and this makes shopping a pleasurable excercise. Just flag down a tuk tk or hop aboard a songtaew. Do negotiate the tuk tuk fares in advance. 50 Baht is the norm for a ten-minute journey, which should get you to most places in the senter of the town. The fare for the songtaew, along predetermined routes is 10 Baht and you can negotiate a small extra payment for delivery to your hotel.
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