Driving in Chiang Mai — an honest guide for first-time visitors

Is it difficult? Honestly, no

If you can drive in a European or Australian city, you can drive in Chiang Mai. It is markedly easier than Bangkok: the traffic is lighter, the distances are short, and the road surfaces on all the main routes are good.

What is different is not the difficulty but the conventions. Thai driving runs on a set of unwritten rules that are consistent and predictable once you know them, and baffling for the first hour if you do not. This guide is about those.

You drive on the left

Thailand drives on the left, and the steering wheel is on the right. If you are coming from continental Europe, North America or most of Asia, this is the single largest adjustment.

Two specific things catch people out:

Right turns cross oncoming traffic. The turn that feels "easy" at home is the hard one here. Take right turns slowly and give yourself more gap than feels necessary for the first day.

Roundabouts run clockwise, and you give way to the right. Chiang Mai has several, including some large ones on the ring roads.

The reliable trick for the first few hours: your body should always be nearest the centre line of the road. If you find yourself next to the kerb, you are on the wrong side.

Our cars are automatic, which removes one thing to think about — you are not also learning to change gear with the other hand.

Motorbikes are the thing to actually pay attention to

Chiang Mai has an enormous number of motorbikes, and they behave differently from cars. This is the part that genuinely requires adaptation.

• They filter constantly, up both sides of your car, including the left. Check your left mirror before any left turn, every time.
• They may come the wrong way along the edge of the road for short distances, particularly on one-way sections and near markets. This is normal here. Look both ways even on a one-way street.
• They often carry a family, and they will not always be lit at night.
• They pull out from side sois with less of a gap than you would expect.

None of this is aggressive. The system works because everyone assumes everyone else is watching. Drive slightly slower than you would at home, leave gaps, signal early, and it is fine.

Signalling and the "flash" convention

A flash of the headlights in Thailand usually means "I am coming through", not "after you". This is the reverse of the British convention and worth knowing before you assume you have been waved forward.

Hazard lights are used at junctions to mean "I am going straight ahead", which is not the official rule but is very widespread. Do not be alarmed if the car in front puts on both indicators as it enters a crossroads.

The old city moat loop

Chiang Mai's old city is a square surrounded by a moat, with roads on both sides. The inner road and the outer road are one-way, in opposite directions. Take the wrong one and you will travel three sides of the square before you can correct it.

Map applications handle this correctly, but they call the turns late. Glance at the route before you set off rather than reacting at the junction.

The gates through the wall are the only crossing points, so decide which gate you want. Tha Phae Gate on the east side is the busiest.

Sunday evening: Ratchadamnoen Road, the main street through the middle of the old city, closes for the Sunday Walking Street from late afternoon until late at night, along with several surrounding lanes. Saturday evening: Wualai Road, just south of the moat, does the same. Plan around both.

Parking

Inside the moat, parking is genuinely limited and street spaces fill in the evening. Around Nimman it is similar. The reliable options everywhere are the shopping-mall car parks, which are usually free or nearly free with a purchase.

Kerbs painted red and white mean no parking. Yellow and white generally means no parking during certain hours. Blocking a soi entrance, even briefly, will get you a hostile reception rather than a ticket.

The BYD Dolphin is noticeably easier to park in the old city than the ATTO 3, which matters more than the specification difference for a city-based stay.

Police checkpoints

You will pass checkpoints, especially on the roads out towards Pai and Mae Hong Son and around the city at weekends. They are routine and generally brief.

Stop when signalled, lower the window, stay in the car unless asked otherwise, and hand over your home licence, your International Driving Permit and your passport together. Keep them accessible rather than in a bag in the boot.

If you do not hold a valid IDP you should not be driving at all — see our IDP guide for why the fine is the least of the problem.

The mountain roads

The road up Doi Suthep is the one most visitors drive. It is a well-surfaced, continuously winding climb of about 30 to 40 minutes from the city. It is not dangerous, but it is relentless — there are very few straight sections.

Two pieces of advice. First, use engine braking on the way down. In our electric cars, switching regenerative braking to its strongest setting does this for you and means you barely touch the brake pedal. Riding the friction brakes for 12 km of descent overheats them, and that is how people get into trouble on this road.

Second, expect songthaews (the red shared taxis) to stop without much warning to pick up passengers, and to take the corners wide.

If you are heading further — Pai, or the Mae Hong Son loop — read the route guide first. Those roads are a different proposition again.

Rain

The wet season runs roughly from June to October. Rain arrives fast, falls very hard for 20 to 40 minutes, and stops. Standing water on city roads is common during that window and drains quickly afterwards.

The right response is simply to slow down or wait it out. Visibility during the heaviest part can drop to near nothing, and it is not worth pushing through. Turn your headlights on — many local drivers do not, which is exactly why you should.

Mountain roads after rain hold water on the corners and can carry mud or gravel washed onto the surface. Take the first few bends carefully to see what the road is doing.

Fuel, or rather charging

If you have taken one of our electric cars, the mental model changes: you charge while doing something else rather than making a special trip. Our Chiang Mai charging guide covers where the chargers are, how long they take, and how to plan a longer trip.

If something happens

Call us first, on the number in your LINE chat, at any hour. We will talk you through it.

For a genuine emergency, 1669 is the ambulance number and 191 is the police. The tourist police number is 1155 and they speak English.

Do not move the vehicles after a collision until the insurance assessor has attended, unless they are causing an immediate danger. Photograph everything. Your rental includes first-class insurance, which is the reason we can say "call us and we will sort it out" rather than something more complicated.

The one-line summary

Drive on the left, watch your left mirror for motorbikes, do not trust a headlight flash to mean "after you", carry all three documents, and use engine braking down Doi Suthep. Everything else is just driving.