Muang Mai Market

Chiang Mai is home to one of the world's great outdoor markets, the Muang Mai Market. Every visit we make to Chiang Mai is filled with regular trips to this fruit lovers paradise, and today we made our first pilgrimage in nearly four years.

We were pleasantly surprised to find that fruit prices here have decreased considerably since our last Thai trip and, compared to Vancouver, they are at bargain basement levels.

We were once again awake at 5:00 AM, so we decided to head staight to Muang Mai to get our pick of the best produce of the day. Other than the prices and decidedly far fewer Westerners browsing the stalls, not much has changed since our last visit. Most of the same vendors are in the same locations and the selection and quality of the produce remains beyond compare.

We had to stop our buying spree before we got to the watermelon section as we were already laden down with two large papayas, 3 kilos of mangoes, a kilo of avocados, two bunches of bananas, 3 kilos of oranges, a huge ginger root, ten limes, six persimmons, a pre-cut pineapple and a kilo of jackfruit. We figured this haul would have cost us well over $60.00 in Vancouver, but it set us back only 458฿, less than $18.00 CDN.

That should hold us until our next trip to Muang Mai on Thursday morning!Read more