rentals for a month in old Chiang Mai
 

My husband and I would like to rent an apartment in the old section of Chiang Mai for a month in order to be able to walk to many places and also to appreciate the culture of the city. Does anyone have any suggestions about where to look for economical but safe and clean places to live? I have tried airbnb but do not know how to guess which areas are best for us to live in. We are in our sixties and like to be active when we visit!

Check on the usual booking sites for serviced apartments - www.sawasdee.com, agoda.com, booking.com The booking sites usually give pretty good info abut locations. It sounds like you want to be inside the city walls.

Thank you. I will try those sites.

Was I told correctly that we could find a very nice one bedroom for less than $1000/month?

I would be inclined to get a place inside, or close to the Old city, an area of, I would guess 1 sq. mile marked by the city walls . http://www.nancychandler.net/chiang-mai.html has some great info on location and the maps are definitely worth buying.

CM is safe and reasonably clean but does suffer a lot with pollution. Choose your dates carefully. I would avoid Feb - April completely when the field burning is in full swing. We were there in March and could hardly see or breathe some days. People were actually wearing gas masks to walk around the streets.

If I recall correctly there was a poster here who did rent and apartment and posted about it in the last year or so, screen name altercocker -or something like that..

Oh my, we are already committed to all of February. Do other people agree about the pollution and breathing? I am getting a little nervous!

I absolutely agree with the recommendation to avoid the burning season. CM struggles with air pollution in any case as they have no public transportation system and they still burn their trash.

Thank you very much - we have changed our February plans!