Chiang Mai Sights

The Moat of Chiang Mai

One of the first things anyone notices in Chiang Mai City is the vast moat that runs around the old city in it's entirety.
It's got numerous areas where the moat is filled in for traffic to make turns into the inner city. The main ones are the four gateway areas (North, East, West and South), plus a few extra ones for easing traffic congestion. This was made many hundreds of years ago and probably served as the first form of defence for the ancient capital of Lanna. The fountains that are dotted up and down the moatway give a watery vapour off to passers-by and some relief from the heat of the day.

Recently the moatway has had wider, pedestrian-friendly pavements laid and more tree's planted so as for people to walk around it. This is a bit of a white elephant though; as for most of the day, with hundreds of vehicles buzzing past you, the last thing you'd want to be doing is walking around the moat sucking in heat and fumes.

Chiang Mai Walls

For ancient Chiang Mai, the city walls would of given the inhabitants amble reasurrance in times of war and strife. The locals could man them and only a serious attack posed a problem.
Nowadays the great walls of Chiang Mai are only intact in certain areas.

 

 

Provincial Map of Chiang Mai