Kad Luang Chiang Rai Market

This is a market for locals doing their shopping, not a place laid on for visitors, and that's exactly why it's worth an hour of your morning. The trade here is vegetables, tropical fruit, bundles of herbs, cheap clothing and household bits, spread across stalls where the prices are pitched at people who live in Chiang Rai.

The food is the reason I'd send anyone. Noodle soups, grilled skewers, ready-to-eat dishes at local rates. Come between 5am and 8am if you can face it, when the produce is freshest and the cooking stalls are going hard. Late afternoon, roughly 4pm to 7pm, is the fallback. Turn up at midday and you'll wander past a lot of half-empty tables wondering what the fuss is about.

Don't expect polish. Floors get wet, aisles are narrow, and nobody is going to explain what they're selling in English. That's the trade-off for seeing how the town actually eats.