Beware of Google Maps errors in Chiang Mai

Like most people who don't know where the hell they are, I rely on Google Maps to get me from place to place. Like any nervous traveler (or noob in the city - again, me) I constantly check the map over.....and over.

However, I think that in Thailand and other SE Asian countries that they maybe didn't put as much time into accuracy as they might have done in other, more developed countries.

source

Like I mentioned in a previous post, I am really enjoying this bike share club I joined. I enjoy the exercise and you notice things around you a lot better when you are moving at a slow clip rather than driving and zooming past everything.

However, this does not mean that I enjoy ending up on the completely wrong side of town, miles away from where I intended to go on an 8 lane divided highway with the only U-turns being ages down the road (I needed to go the opposite direction as traffic was flowing.)

Google Maps was indicating that i needed to "turn right!" at absurd locations like the entrance of a temple (I promise I am not making this up.) and would routinely tell me to cross bridges at locations where there was no bridge and it didn't appear as if there ever was.

source

I understand that sometimes new buildings are made and old roads are eliminated and what not but this temple was much older than GPS, or 4G, or Google, or had been there long before Al Gore invented the Internet.

I don't think you are even supposed to be on a road of this magnitude on a bicycle, let alone driving into traffic (I was NOT going to drive 2 miles down the road to U-turn properly - sorry!) but i did exactly that, for about 500 meters. I was very careful and no one even beeped at me - I am still in Thailand after-all and people kinda do whatever they want on the road.

Here is the tl;dr - If you are in Chiang Mai and are going to anywhere that isn't a major attraction take the advice Google Maps gives you with a "grain of salt" (IE: don't believe it) because I shouldn't have explored as much as I did today. I didn't intend to, but in order to get to my destination I reckon i went about 5 miles further than was necessary, hot horribly sweaty and a bit sunburned.