5 days in Chiang Mai

Wat Chiang Man at opening. The oldest temple in the city, begun in 1296 while the walls themselves were going up, and the quietest of the three inside the moat. Its chedi is held up by a row of elephants coming out of the brickwork.

Then walk, without a destination. The moat square is about a kilometre and a half on each side, and the north-east quarter around Wat Chiang Man is the calmest part of it.

Everything today is on foot. Start early: the walking is the good part, and it stops being the good part by eleven.

Long, and indoors. From March the middle of the day is not walking weather, and on five days there is nothing to be gained by pushing through it.

Wat Chedi Luang, and go in the afternoon on purpose. The chedi went up in 1441 and lost its top to an earthquake in the sixteenth century. What is left is a vast brick mass with elephants along the base, and it is far more affecting than it would be intact.

The Monk Chat tables are signposted under the trees, the conversation is free, and the student monks are practising their English on you as much as you are asking about their life. It is the one thing in the Old City that cannot be done at speed.

The Sunday Walking Street runs the length of Ratchadamnoen if the day lands right, and it is the one we would take if you only get one weekend evening. The Saturday market in Wualai is smaller and easier to walk, and it is on day four anyway.

Otherwise the Old City goes quiet by about eleven, which on a first evening is a feature.

Wat Pha Lat first, halfway up the mountain: a half-ruined temple in the forest, built around a stream, moss on the stonework, almost nobody there. It is our favourite temple around Chiang Mai and most visitors never hear about it.

Then Doi Suthep itself, at about 1,050 metres and roughly fifteen kilometres from the Old City. From the base there are 306 steps between two long naga serpents, or a funicular. The terrace at the top looks straight down over the city and the plain.

A Grab up and a red songthaew down is the cheap compromise. The songthaews near the zoo do not leave until they fill, which is a wait going up and never a problem coming back.

Back in the city, and take your time over it. The hardest part of the whole trip is behind you and it is not yet one o'clock.

Nothing. This is the afternoon we would protect, and five days is what makes protecting it possible.

If sitting still is unbearable, the moat is a forty-minute walk from end to end and the bookshops on Ratchadamnoen are open.

Wat Suan Dok, and arrive with time rather than at a run. It is the burial ground of the Lanna royal line, a field of whitewashed chedis on open grass, and the half hour before the sun goes behind Doi Suthep is the only one that counts. You will have that half hour today. On a shorter trip you would be watching the clock through it.

Wat Suan Dok is on the Suthep side, so it chains with the morning without crossing the city.

Nimman, ten minutes north-west of the moat. Wide streets off a main strip, dense with specialty coffee, co-working spaces and the Maya and One Nimman malls. It is the part of town built for people who work from a laptop, and it feels like it, for better and for worse.

Expect to pay more here than inside the moat. That is the trade for the coffee.

Santitham, between the Old City and Nimman: cheap street food, local markets, a few excellent unmarked restaurants, and noticeably less English on the signs than the streets you have walked so far. Nothing here is designed for visitors, which is the entire recommendation.

Order khao soi if you have not yet. It is the dish the North is actually known for, and it is not Thai food as the rest of the country makes it.

Wat Umong, west of the city: brick tunnels cut into a mound, lined with old Buddha images and lit badly on purpose, a lake, and proverbs in English nailed to the trees. It is a working meditation centre, so the quiet is real rather than curated.

Wualai, just south of the moat, for the silver temple. Wat Sri Suphan's ordination hall is covered inside and out in hand-beaten silver and aluminium panels. Two honest caveats: women are not allowed inside that hall, which is a monastic rule and not negotiable, and the work is modern craft rather than a historic monument.

On a Saturday the Walking Street runs down the same road: smaller than the Sunday one, more local in feel and considerably easier to walk.

A scooter earns its keep today, but only with a motorcycle licence and an international permit: without them your insurance declines everything. Otherwise the three stops are four short Grab rides.

Whatever you did not get to. If that is a temple, it is Wat Phra Singh, at the west end of Ratchadamnoen: walk straight past the big modern hall to the Wihan Lai Kham at the back, a small wooden building with gold stencil on red lacquer. That is the part worth the visit.

Go back to whichever of the last four days you liked most, and repeat a piece of it. Repeating something good is a better use of a fifth day than adding something average.

The Riverside, if you have not been: the old trading side of the Ping, quieter and greener than anywhere else within reach of the centre, with a string of the best restaurants in the city along the water.

If the air is bad, which from mid-February to mid-April it can be, this is the afternoon to spend indoors and stop pretending otherwise.

Pack early and eat late. The airport is four kilometres from the Old City and ten to twenty minutes away, one of the shortest airport runs of any major city, which removes the last reason to cut an evening short.

Five days is not five full days. If you find yourself scheduling this one, the itinerary has stopped working for you and you have started working for it.