Chiang Rai: a good choice for expats and retirees
With a population of less than 100.000, Chiang Rai has an intimate feel not found in a big city. If you are considering a new life in Asia, if you do not want to live in a big city, but do not want to be one of the few foreigners in a small city, Chiang Rai could be a good choice.
Located at the foot of the hills to the east of Thailand's highest mountain ranges, Chiang Rai is ideally located. Dense cool forests, majestic waterfalls, elephant camps and a number of hill tribe villages are located just a short distance outside the city.
Being also in the heart of the Golden Triangle, where Thailand, Burma and Laos converge in what was once the largest opium producing region, the city is shrouded in mystique.
Many expats, many of whom first lived in Chiang Mai, have long since discovered the area in and around Chiang Rai and are now living there. They have discovered that this much smaller city offers better living conditions and a higher quality of life. The air is cleaner, the traffic is more manageable and the people are friendly. It is an open city with parks and green areas. In addition, the cost of living in Chiang Rai is much lower than in Chiang Mai.
Beautiful Lanna-style teak houses nestled in gardens behind flowering hedges grace the quiet streets found in much of the city. Chiang Rai has largely escaped the breakneck pace of “development at any cost” that still rages across much of Southeast Asia.
Beautiful view of Doi Mae Salong mountain in Chiang rai
Although there are internationally recognized hospitals and a number of large shopping malls just minutes from the city center, Chiang Rai has a small-town atmosphere. For Westerners living in Chiang Rai, making friends is easy. Quite a few expats live in this city and, unlike Chiang Mai, it is not overwhelmed by hordes of tourists.
Chiang Rai is perhaps one of the most beautiful places in Thailand to live. It is big enough to have all the amenities westerners want, yet small enough to feel comfortable. The climate is pleasant all year round, although there are of course characteristic seasonal variations. The environment offers unlimited opportunities for "discovery" and recreation.
If you make the consideration, as noted at the outset, Chiang Rai is well worth considering as a possible place to live.
Source: Chiangrai Times
The source of this article ie Chiangrai Times is purely recruiting potential investors ie unfortunately with a rosy picture.
Nowadays I have to leave my home in Chiang Rai for 4 to 5 months a year because of the toxic air pollution.
Chiang Rai is only viable during the rainy season when the locals can't burn it down even if they want to.
I have been coming to Chiang Rai for over 20 years and can very much underline the above benefits.
The only drawback, and this is also one of the main reasons why I prefer not to live here permanently, is the annually increasing bad air, which often affects 3 months a year.
Bad air that is often such that sometimes the sun disappears behind a thick unhealthy smog for weeks, and the mountains in the immediate vicinity are barely visible.
If you blow your nose, as every human being will do from time to time, it is often a soot that also sucks into your lungs unintentionally when breathing normally.
The same soot is also regularly on your patio, and you can admire your freshly washed laundry hanging to dry.
Many people in the village, who cough for days and regularly visit the doctor's office for this, shake their heads while coughing with the words "Agaat mai die", and are only half aware of how harmful this air really is to their health.
People who think I'm exaggerating should, to convince themselves, download the App "Air 4 Thai", where very often the warning of "Verry unhealthy" or even "Dangerous" is written.
The government in Bangkok has been promising improvement for years, but apparently, because it is no longer a far from my bed show for them, they do not care about this problem.
Very unfortunate for this beautiful province, where I prefer to be even at very high temperatures in the summer, because of the much cleaner air.
And then you also sometimes suffer from light earthquakes up to now.
Jan Beute.
Ls,
Can you tell me where you do not have these air pollution problems and still have a pleasant climate / environment and not too hot?
Gr Rob
If you do not want to stay in Chiang Rai during the first months of the year Jan; Feb. March, sometimes until mid-April, apart from high temperatures and high humidity, Chiang Rai can also be tolerated well in terms of air.
The same winter months can also be very bad in terms of air pollution in Pattaya and the rest of central Thailand.
In January 2020, we regularly experienced in Pattaya that the sun went behind a thick cloud of unhealthy smog in the afternoon, and the air remained very bad for weeks.
Personally, I would always favor the south of Phuket, Krabi, Koh Samui, etc. in terms of cleaner air in the winter months.
I thought that in the south of Thailand they often suffer from smog and unhealthy air.
But at a different time of the year.
Only this pollution does not come from Thailand itself, but is blown over from Indonesia, because there they can also burn like the best.
Had an acquaintance with asthma left Chiangmai for this reason, went to live south and came there from the rain in the drip.
Jan Beute.
I love living there all year round beautiful nature mountains and forests
I also like living here very much, and even built a house here with my Thai husband, only in the months of bad air I mentioned, I prefer not to be here.
If you don't live in the middle of the beautiful nature and the mountains, because of the thick smog that hides everything, it is often impossible to see for months.