Chiang Mai

It is 306 steps up from the car park, between naga balustrades, to the terrace. Take the funicular beside them if knees are a worry. It is ticketed apart. The west cloister looks over the whole city, though haze buries the view late in the dry season.

Most of the wall is gone; the four corner bastions and the gate sites are what stand. The moat still carries water, with one-way roads down both banks, so you cross only at a crossing. The square at Tha Phae, the east gate, is where people arrange to meet.

The top of the chedi is missing; an earthquake in 1545 is the usual account, and nobody has rebuilt it. Beside the main hall a corner is set aside for sitting and talking with a monk, and in the afternoons somebody is usually there.

Around four on Sunday afternoon they close Ratchadamnoen from Tha Phae Gate and the stalls start going down. Temple courtyards along it fill with food sellers, which is where the seats are. At six the anthem plays and everyone stops where they stand.

The highest ground in Thailand is 2,565 metres, and the summit itself is walled in by forest with nothing to see. What people come for is the pair of chedis below it and the Ang Ka boardwalk. December and January dawns bring frost, and sleeves are not enough.

The lanes off the main road are numbered, so people give addresses by lane number. Two or three roasters to a lane do their own beans and there are seats in the morning, and being a university district it undercuts the old city visibly.

Twenty-odd wooden buildings stand round a single yard as workshops and bookshops. Closed on Mondays. Pottery and indigo dyeing can be tried on the spot, but they take time, so ask before you turn up.

Nine kilometres east of town, a village that builds umbrellas from mulberry paper on bamboo ribs. The painters sitting out front will put the same design on a bag or a phone case you hand them. An umbrella festival lands in January.

At 1,300 metres it runs about five degrees below the city, and fog settles in by evening. The houses line a stream running down the village, with a waterfall at the end of it. Tea and coffee paid for this place, and it is still roasted here.

A reservoir at the foot of Doi Suthep with bamboo huts floated out over the water. You do not pay for a hut; you order food to it, and the food is carried out to you. Going into the water is not allowed.

Chiang Mai's most revered temple, standing where the old city ends to the west. The walls of the small Viharn Lai Kham show old Lanna dress and market scenes. At Songkran its Buddha image is carried out and paraded through the streets.

Held to be the first temple built by King Mangrai, the city's founder, around 1296. Carved elephants carry the base of the chedi on their backs. Its spot down a lane in the old city's northeast corner keeps visitor numbers low.

A forest temple on the lower slopes of Doi Suthep where monks meditated in brick tunnels. Buddha images sit at the end of each passage, and traces of old paintings remain on the walls. A stall by the pond sells feed for the turtles and fish.

Dozens of white chedis in rows, holding the ashes of Chiang Mai's royal family. At sunset the white turns red, and people photograph it against Doi Suthep. In the afternoon a session runs where you can talk with monks in English.

A temple on Wualai, the silversmiths' street, its ordination hall clad in silver panels. Following Lanna custom, women may not enter the silver hall and view it from outside. From the workshop in the yard comes the tapping of silver sheet.

A temple hidden beside a waterfall partway up the Doi Suthep road. The Monk's Trail, starting behind Chiang Mai University, gets you there after roughly sixty minutes of walking. Mossy chedis stand in a yard where water slides over the rock.

Near the Ping River, the market where Chiang Mai people do their shopping. Downstairs means heaps of northern sausage, chilli relish and dried fruit; upstairs is clothing and fabric. Across the road the Ton Lamyai flower market trades all night.

Stalls go up on both pavements of Chang Klan Road every evening. Souvenirs dominate, carvings, lanterns and silk, and prices are settled by haggling. Inside, the Kalare food court serves dinner with a stage show.

A Saturday evening market that closes Wualai Road, shorter and less crowded than the Sunday one. It runs down the silversmiths' street, so silver jewellery stalls are thick. The stalls carry on into the grounds of Wat Sri Suphan.

A farmers' market on Saturday and Sunday mornings selling organic vegetables and handicrafts. Coffee and breakfast-noodle stalls cluster under the trees. By mid-morning the heat builds, so arrive early.

An earlier capital built before Chiang Mai, buried by river floods and later dug out. Some 20 brick temple sites lie scattered among fields and houses. Visitors go round by horse cart or electric tram.

Limestone deposits keep the rock grippy rather than slick, so you can walk barefoot up against the falling water. Allow roughly sixty minutes by car heading north from town. At the top, water wells up from the ground into a clear pool.

A cave temple running under Doi Chiang Dao, north of Chiang Mai. The deeper passages are unlit, so you hire a guide with a lantern at the entrance. Inside, Buddha images stand among the stalactites.

A sanctuary for elephants rescued from shows and logging work. No riding; visitors feed them and watch them in the river. It lies in the Mae Taeng valley and getting in means booking.