hey what's up, in this video I'm going
to talk to you about my personal
feelings and personal experiences when I
was in Chiang Mai, I'll talk to you about the
stuff that I like about Chiang Mai as well
as the stuff that I don't really like
I think we need to weighs to pros as well
as the cons, giving our best and honest
opinion as well as a different point of
view, so we can learn about the world
and to make an informed decision, not just
waving about the good stuff
if you're only visiting Chiang Mai for short times
for a couple days or a couple weeks
you might not notice a lot of the dislikes
that I'm going to talk to you about
I'm talking about - if you're staying in
Chiang Mai long-term, I'm not an expert in
Chiang Mai I only stay there for four
months so if you disagree with me or
you've been living in Chiang Mai for a
longer period of time, longer than me and
you disagree
feel free to leave a comment below and
also the other thing is that I'm Thai
I speak Thai so I don't need to be in a
place like Chiang Mai where there are a lot of
English-speaking people - I can pretty
much live anywhere in Thailand and
I don't have any problem communicating
with people so keep that in mind this is
coming form a person that could
speak the Thai language and understand
Thai culture, the first dislike about Chiang Mai
for me that I really don't like is
that and this could be a good thing
depending who you are, my first dislike
is very very touristy, there's are a
lot of Western amenities, if you've been
following my videos, my Chiang Mai series
beginning of each video like
for example, you can see a whole bunch of
people on a Segway, I never seen so many
Segway in one spot before, the police uses them
the Chinese tourists use them
this might be a good thing if
you like Western amenities, you like a
Western fast food chain
want to eat at Starbucks, you want to eat
at Burger King, McDonald's, Subway
Chiang Mai has a lot of Western amenities
also there's a lot of travel agencies in
Chiang Mai, you go down to my apartment lobby
there are brochures of places to visit
you hop on the tuk-tuk, you see more brochures
there are posters but to be fair all
tuk-tuk are like this pretty much anywhere
in Thailand, most of them, some places
they don't do it, you go to the old city
inside the middle of Chiang Mai
there are brochures and bike rental place
there are brochures pretty
much every couple houses down the street
there are a lot of tourists there are
a lot of Americans, Europeans, Chinese
Japanese, Koreans, pretty much everyone
around the world come to Chiang Mai, for example
if you look at this video, I was just
standing in front one of the night
market and there were bus loads
of Chinese tourists coming in, there were
at least 20 tour buses going to
this single hotel which is right
next to this night market, this is not
the same Chiang Mai that people talk
about 5, 10, 20 plus years ago, the Chiang Mai
that I'm talking about right now
at the time this recording is not the same
as many years ago, this is no longer a
small town
this is a big growing city
number two on my list, is the air quality
and the traffic congestion
the air quality in Chiang Mai is a serious issue
I'm one of those people that
think invincible, before I came to Chiang Mai
I read and I heard a lot about the air
quality in Chiang Mai and I want those
people that don't listen to those
advice and I think I'm invincible until
I came here and experience it myself
let me assure you that what ever people
are talking, about the air quality is
true and is a serious issue
especially during the burning season
I would go even further with
the high season when there are more
tourists coming to Chiang Mai and there are more
people on the roads so I would avoid the
months of the burning season and I would
even go further and say I would avoid
the high season when there are more
tourists coming in, there are more people
on the roads but that's me
don't get me wrong, you can still come to
Chiang Mai anytime you want
I never in my life have to worry about
air quality, I was very lucky until I
moved to Thailand and this is
something that I never thought it was
gonna be an issue before I came here but
it is, I had my first carbon monoxide
poisoning in Bangkok before I came to
Chiang Mai, my side effect was a dizziness for about
30 minutes, problem breathing and
I still have it today if I go outside and
I'm inhaling all this exhaust fume and
I might have some tightening feeling in my upper body
air quality in terms of the fumes
from the cars is going an issue
especially in very high congested roads
inside Thailand, as well as anywhere
around the world but I never had any
issues with this until I came here
when I got my first carbon monoxide poisoning
it wasn't serious that I need to be
hospitalized or I wanted to see a doctor
but it was enough for me to buy a
mask to wear and and I have this mask
it's like this, so if you buy a mask make
sure you buy a mask with the N95 approved
this mask is made
by 3M Innovation and they
also have the N99, the N95 means
it removes or filter 95%
of the pollution, the N99
it means it filter 99% of the pollution
I prefer to have N110 but this is what
they have so I brought this one because
it is more portable, you can fold
it and you can put in your pocket, you can
walk around with it, the N99 masks are more bulkier
you can't fold it and it's harder for me
to carry but now I have to
carry this around with me in Thailand if I need it
I don't wear this 100%
of the time when I 'm outside
right now I'm in Hua Hin
I haven't wear this yet once but if
I'm in Bangkok or in Chiang Mai, if I ever
go back to Chiang Mai I will have this in my pocket
if I find myself in a very
congested area with a lot of vehicles
and fumes coming out, I will pull this out and I'm
gonna have to wear this
because I don't want to take any chances
so this first time I have to do this in
my life
wearing masks, it's not just me if you
go to Chiang Mai, Bangkok you will see
there are expat, foreigners including
Thais that have mask, a lot of Thais they
were surgical masks, those don't
filter out all the pollution, if you're
going to wear a mask make sure you wear
one that is a N95 certified or N99 certified
because they are certified to
remove the tiniest pollution particles
and again I don't wear the mask 100%
of the time when I'm in Chiang Mai
I only wear it inside or around
very congested areas in Chiang Mai
these are the parts of Chiang Mai I have problem
with and I try to avoid them as much as possible
other parts of Chiang Mai are fine
I lived about 50 yards away from
these major roads and I didn't have any
problem but if I'm right next to the
traffic then I will notice the exhaust fume
I think I'm a pretty tough dude at least
in my head anyways, I used to work in a
factory on and off for 3 to 4 years
inside the factory is labor-intensive work
I used to stand 8 to 10 hours per day
sometime more and during the summer
there were no air conditioning, during
the winter there were no heating and you're
standing all day long and I can get used
to that, I can also get used to the
tropical heat in Thailand but there are
some things that I cannot get use of and
that's to breathe in pollution, I can never
get used to that, with all that said
about Chiang Mai, I'm glad that I stayed in
Chiang Mai for four months because I got
to see how things were during the
burning season and the high season
I first moved there in January and
I my last month was in April so the first
month in January/February was very bad
in terms of the air quality, during
the last month in April, I'm glad that I
stick around that long because I realized
why a lot of people love Chiang Mai because
once the low season started in around April
there were less tourists so less
tourists, less people, less people on the
roads, the burning season stopped and the low
season started in around April
things got a lot better and I finally realized
why people love Chiang Mai so much
burning season starts between January
to April, every first couple months of
the year there is going to be the burning season
what happened during the burning season
is the farmers in Chiang Mai, around
the Chiang Mai City start to burn their
rice fields so they can prepare for the
new season
what happens and the side effects
with the burning of the rice fields is that
there are a lot of smog and smoke
you can see it all around the city, for me
during the burning season, it didn't affect
me as much in terms of the air quality
the congestion of the traffic
and roads bother me the most, the burning
season I didn't notice too much of a difference
I notice that the sky is not
blue and most of time you're not going
to see the Sun and that's the only thing
I notice during the burning season
some people have problems with their
breathing, personally I
didn't have that issue and that's
probably because I lived closer
inside the city, now I know once
I went outside the city during the
burning season, I was on the Mae Taeng River
which was a couple hours north of
Chiang Mai, that's the only time when I
noticed the burning sense, the burning smell
it didn't bother me too much for the
first couple hours
it did became very irritating after a
couple hours you're sitting there and your
breathing it in, here's a clip when I was
walking outside inside the old
city and you can see me walking here and
this is the sky during the burning season
you can see there's no blue sky
you don't see the Sun, so if you're expecting
to see some blue sky and some nice sunny
day you might be disappointed
ok so the fourth one, this is not a big deal
the fourth thing that I don't like
about Chiang Mai is that there are no beaches
you can see it on the map so there's no
place to swim, now you can rent
an apartment or stay in a hotel that has
a swimming pool and the thing is that I
can't imagine how busy Chiang Mai would be
if there was a beach next to Chiang Mai
the fifth thing that I don't like about Chiang Mai is
the lack of meter-taxi, the lack of the mass
transportation system, comparing Chiang Mai to Bangkok
Bangkok has a subway, the
skytrain, the railway link, Chiang Mai they
don't have any of those, with all that said
I will eventually visit Chiang Mai again
when? I I don't know yet but I will visit
Chiang Mai, I'm not going to visit Chiang Mai
during the high season or the burning season
the months that I will visit Chiang Mai
is probably after the burning season
like around
after April and May I will visit Chiang Mai
for couple months and then leave but
again that's just me
I'm just an old guy if you're like younger
you're in your twenties
your lungs are younger, you can take more punishments
you probably won't
notice anything, I'm just old guy now I
still have to watch my blood pressure, my cholesterol
I can't eat certain things
don't let me discourage you
there are people still living there, I met with
an American that lived there
he'd been to Chiang Mai for over 30 years
and he's not going to stop going there
I also met with another American who
only visit Chiang Mai every time he comes
visit Thailand, he never visited any
other city in Thailand beside Chiang Mai
and he's been living there for almost
five years, if you watch the video all
the way to this point
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