> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://easythailandvisa.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # Chiang Mai Has Three Night Markets and Only One of Them Is Worth the Taxi - URL: https://easythailandvisa.com/chiang-mai-night-bazaar-and-warorot-market/ - Published: 2026-10-12T00:30:00.000Z - Updated: 2026-10-19T12:29:20.000Z - Description: The Night Bazaar is the one everybody photographs and the Sunday Walking Street is the one everybody should actually be on. Here is the difference, with opening hours. - Author: Somchai Jaidee - Tags: Street Food, Slow Travel I ate my way across the Chiang Mai Night Bazaar on a Wednesday, and it was fine. Nothing was wrong with it. It was the most forgettable meal of the trip. Two nights later I walked Ratchadamnoen Road from Tha Phae Gate to the end of the square, and I understood that I had been eating in the wrong market the whole time. Last verified 8 October 2026\. Market hours shift with season and with temple fairs; treat what follows as the shape of it, not a contract. ## The three, and how they are genuinely different **The Night Bazaar on Chang Klan Road runs every night, roughly 5pm to midnight.** It is convenient, it is big, and it is commercial. You can buy a mass-produced t-shirt, a phone case and a frozen smoothie in three consecutive stalls and feel no more connected to Thailand than you would in a shopping mall. The Kalare section inside the complex runs cultural shows and is fine in a beige way. **The Sunday Walking Street is the one that matters.** Ratchadamnoen Road, starting at Tha Phae Gate and running the length of the square, becomes pedestrian-only from around 4pm until 10.30pm or midnight. Hundreds of stalls, spilling into the temple grounds as you go. And it is only on Sundays, which is why the crowd is Thai rather than tourist. **Saturday has the same thing on Wualai Road**, in the west of the city. It is smaller, more local and more relaxed. If you have to choose one day, choose Saturday Wualai for the atmosphere and Sunday Ratchadamnoen for the sheer volume. **One thing nobody tells you:** the national anthem plays on the speakers around 6pm on the Sunday Walking Street. Everyone stops. Stalls go quiet, people stand still, hands down. Do not walk through it. It lasts about three minutes and it is the most Thai thing you will witness all week. ## What to actually eat on the walking street Skip the first hundred metres of the gate, where the same grilled sausage and fried thing are sold nine times. **Look for *sai ua***, the northern pork sausage, coriander and garlic, eaten with a nest of noodles. **Order *khao taen***, the deep-fried crispy noodle cake, which is nothing like the nest-shaped version and is best with condensed milk. **Get *nam prik ong* with grilled pork**, the tomato-and-pork [chilli](https://easythailandvisa.com/thai-chilli-heat-and-how-to-eat-spicy-food/) dip, with [sticky rice](https://easythailandvisa.com/thai-rice-dishes-side-dishes-matter/) and vegetables, which is closer to how the north actually eats than anything on a Bangkok menu. **And buy a bag of sticky rice in banana leaf from a vendor with a queue**, which is breakfast and is better than anything fried. Carry small notes. The best stalls are cash-only and their "no change" problem is your problem. ## The daytime markets, which nobody visits and which are the real ones **Warorot Market, *Kad Luang***, the old royal market, is a three-storey building on the Ping River and it shuts around 7pm. It opens at 4am, because it is a produce market, and the interesting hours are 4am to 9am. Spices, fabrics, dried goods, and next door the flower market, where the garlands you see on the shrines get made. **Ton Lamyai**, across the river, runs 7.30am to 5.30pm and is herbs, spices, wood and old junk. Nobody is there selling you a massage. That is the appeal. **Muang Mai** is the wholesale fruit and vegetable market, where the restaurant supply goes. Go early and go quietly; this is a working market, not an attraction. Use Warorot as a transport hub. The white songthaews that leave from the flower market area run east to [**Bo Sang**](https://easythailandvisa.com/thai-craft-villages-bo-sang-umbrellas-and-ban-tawai/)**, the umbrella village**, about half an hour out, which is a completely different destination and a very good use of an afternoon. ## The Chiang Mai University night market One more, because it is the cheapest and the most local. The student market food court is student-priced and it is where I actually ate most meals in Chiang Mai. **A plate of** [**pad kra pao**](https://easythailandvisa.com/pad-kra-pao-and-som-tam-ordering-thai-favorites/)**, a plate of something else and a drink was around 120 baht** at the stall I went to, and nobody was performing anything for me. ## How to not waste the evening **Go at 5pm, eat early, then walk.** The best food sells out first, and the interesting part of a walking street is the far end where the handcraft stalls are and the tourist density has dropped by ninety percent. **Carry cash and a bag.** You will buy something, you should have planned to, and plastic bags cost more than you think. **Check whether you are on the Sunday road or the Saturday road** before you set out, because they are two hours apart and on the wrong night you arrive at a traffic junction. **Skip the Night Bazaar entirely if you have been to a walking street**, and skip both if you have just arrived and are exhausted, and go to the university market instead. Nothing on that list is going anywhere. **More on this** - [Seven Days in Chiang Mai on 300 Baht a Day](https://easythailandvisa.com/seven-days-chiang-mai-300-baht-a-day/) - [Chiang Mai Is One of Asia's Best Cycling Cities and Almost](https://easythailandvisa.com/cycling-in-thailand-chiang-mai-gravel-roads/) - [Khao Soi, and the Eight Other Northern Dishes You Should Eat](https://easythailandvisa.com/northern-thai-food-khao-soi/) - [Thailand Has Twenty-Five National Parks and You Should Only](https://easythailandvisa.com/thailand-national-parks-which-one-to-choose/)