Living /retire in Chiang Mai

• Home

• Our Services

• About us

• About Thailand

• About Chiang Mai

• Travel to Chiang Mai

• Pictures of Chiang Mai

• FAQ

• Contact us

• Friend of the week

• Chiang Mai Friends Newsletter

• Chiang Mai Impressions

• Chiang Mai Charities

• Download Our Brochure

Shopping

Shopping
Chiang Mai is a shoppers’ paradise, whether you’re buying ingredients for your supper, furnishing or updating your home, or just indulging yourself. Don’t worry about language difficulties, many retailers have a smattering of the English language and miming can be great fun as well as successful!
Tesco Lotus, Carrefour, Big C , Makro and the Rimping stores, (smaller than the others but stocking a large range of imported Western foods), are useful at first, but shopping where most Thais do, in local markets scattered all over the city and its suburbs, is a lot more interesting and enjoyable. Exceptionally fresh and often locally grown vegetables and fruit, fresh meat, (mainly pork and chicken), fish and seafood, many varieties of rice, flowers, herbs and spices and a section set aside for shoes, clothes and basic household needs are the norm. A walk around a local fresh market is a fascinating experience, even if you don’t recognise some of the produce on sale!

Shopping for clothes
A variety of good quality adult and children’s clothing is available in department stores such as Robinson’s at Airport Plaza and Kad Suan Kaew shopping malls, as well as in these malls’ smaller shops. The city now boasts a large number of boutique-style fashion stores selling up-to-the-minute styles in all sizes…you don’t have to be ultra-slim to shop successfully for clothes these days. The huge weekend Walking Street markets, held on Saturdays on Wualai Road and on Sundays on Rachadamnoen Road in the old city are also a good source of very interesting and well-designed clothes, particularly for women. Tesco Lotus and the other superstores have a good supply of basic everyday wear at good prices, and are now stocking the larger sizes.

Dressmakers and tailors are plentiful, cheap and very helpful, and will copy designs from a drawing or fashion magazine Ask around in your locality for a recommendation. Many seamstresses can also be found on the second floor of Warorot Market; you can buy beautiful silks, cottons and even curtain materials on the ground floor and in nearby shops and have them made up almost immediately. The several floors of this huge market, located next to the Ping River, is crammed with sellers of absolutely everything you will ever need or want.

If you are a shoeaholic, Chiang Mai is your heaven! Prices are a fraction of those in the West and styles range from comfortable to mouth-wateringly extravagant. Whether you buy in markets, shoe stores, department stores or boutiques, you’ll find very soon that you have far too many pairs of shoes! But why worry, they’re all gorgeous! All styles, all colours, all heel heights and types, all lovely, all great value… even the designer styles in Robinson’s Kad Suan Kaew cost on average from 1500 baht or so.

One last note - sizes themselves seem to vary here even more that they do in the West! The usual markers for womens’ clothing are S, M, L, XL or LL, and XXL, (last week we actually saw an XXXL!) but the actual size will vary considerably with the cut of the item itself. So - as a rule, particularly in the superstores, try everything on. If you can’t try it, don’t buy it!

Setting up your garden.
If you’re lucky enough to have a garden, a huge and stunning variety of seasonal plants and smaller trees is available at the Kham Tieng garden centre behind Tesco Lotus on the superhighway. Even fully grown trees and palms can be bought at specialist nurseries around the outskirts of the city. Remember, though, that the cute flowering bush you couldn’t resist buying may very well, after a year or so, be taller and wider than your house! As a general rule, plants and trees will grow in the Chiang Mai climate at a rate unimaginable in your home country. Prices are very cheap compared to the West. Also available at Kham Thieng is a wide variety of terracotta plant pots, fountains, accessories, water features, fish ponds, fish, fertiliser, etc, etc. It really is a “one-stop shop”, and very useful, at least until you have found all the other outlets closer to home.

Contact: info@retireinchiangmai.com