Upon arriving in Chiang Mai for my twelfth time, I have been noticing obvious and more subtle changes in the city that will have me seriously considering why I should continue to return and look at it as a possible second home.
The most obvious problem for me has been the air quality issue. I arrived on the fifth of January which is normally a good time to be here before the effect of the burning which occurs every year in the North wafts its way down to Thailand’s second largest and most popular city. This year smoke haze was already here to greet me with a pollution index climbing up to 170 PM2.5. This is considered too high and unhealthy for sensitive groups or people with respiratory problems such as the elderly or very young children. If it goes up to over 200, then we are in the very unhealthy range for everyone. Purple is over 300 so you can imagine what that must mean! Last year Chiang Mai managed to reach that level some days in late March and April when the effects of the burning and drought were at their worst. This year it’s all up for grabs. No one knows what it will be like this April. The odd thing about all of this is that not every day is so bad. Recently, the index registered a healthy 71 because of the the way the wind was blowing. We could see the mountains all around us, and I felt my energy returning. The next day it was back up to 170! The government says it’s going to clamp down heavily on the farmers who insist on burning so as to get in two crops for the season, but the big question is whether or not they will enforce that law? It’s always easier to say rather than do with promises the Thai have all heard before.
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