Beyond Haripunchai—Excursions Out of Lamphun

                                      by Jim Goodman

ruins at Ko Klong, Chamadevi's birthplace

       The attractions that lure and enchant visitors to Chiang Mai—ancient monuments, old temples, mountains, caves, waterfalls, ethnic minority communities and craft villages—can also be enjoyed just south, on day excursions to Lamphun Province.  The two provincial capitals are only about 30 km apart and less than an hour’s travel time, whether by train or any of the three roads.  Lamphun’s old city is like a smaller version of Chiang Mai, surrounded by moats, and a river on one side, and bounded by remnants of old walls, with entry gates in the four directions.

Black Stone Buddha, Wat Mahawan

Ku Kai, the chedi for Chamadevi's  rooster

       The city is actually much older than Chiang Mai, founded as the capital of a Mon state in the 7^th century and named Haripunchai.  Its first ruler was Queen Chamadevi, originally born near here, but later raised in the royal court of the Mon state of Lavo, today’s Lopburi.  Though Chamadevi was a real historical person, myth and legend have embellished the details of her life.  Her cult has persisted down to contemporary times and a visit to old Haripunchai largely consists of sites associated with the ancient queen.

ruined chedi at Wat Ko Klong

Wat Tan Kok, Wiang Tha Kan

       This includes Wat Haripunchai, originally built in 1044 on the grounds of Chamadevi’s former palace.  Its main gilded chedi was erected a century later, right over the queen’s bedroom.  Just outside the west gate of the old town, Wat Mahawan, a temple noted for its amulets, houses a black stone Buddha image the queen brought up from Lavo.  Further west lies Wat Chamadevi, (a.k.a. Wat Kukut) first constructed the same year, with its two early 13^th century brick chedis still standing.  The smaller one contains Chamadevi’s ashes.  The new viharn features vivid wall murals of scenes from her life and times.

Wat Mae Klang Wiang, Wiang Tha Kan

       Elsewhere in Lamphun, the Chamadevi Park occupies the southwest corner of the old town.   North of the moats, a splendid mixture of styles marks the reconstructed Wat Sanpayangluang, her cremation site.  East of the old town, the interior walls of the ordination hall of Wat Prayeun, one of her favorite temples, are covered with paintings of events in Chamadevi ‘s life.  And northeast of the city are ancient chedis built to house the remains of Chamadevi’s elephant, horse, rooster and cat—a phenomenon unique in the country.

       Well, she was certainly a phenomenal woman, the most accomplished in Thailand’s history.  From Lavo, contingents of artisans, doctors, astrologers, merchants, teachers and 500 monks accompanied her.  She subdued the local Lawa, established a firm foundation for the state and in late middle age abdicated in favor of the elder of her twin sons.  The younger one then founded Lampang, northern Thailand’s second oldest city. 

Wat Ku Mai Dang, Wiang Tha Kan

       Her dynastic line died out in the early 11^th century and a killer epidemic forced the population to relocate for several years in Lower Burma.  Upon their return, the new dynasty continued to honor Chamadevi and its first kings built Wats Haripunchai and Kukut.  The state repelled three Khmer invasions in the 12^th century and remained at peace until finally subdued by Mengrai of Lanna in the late 13^th century.

       Besides the ancient relics in and around Lamphun city, other vestiges of the Mon state are within the vicinity.  Chamadevi’s birthplace, Ko Klong village, is about ten km west of Pasang, the next town south of Lamphun.  Within the village’s temple grounds stand the ruins of three brick and laterite religious buildings, built in the 9^th century and renovated 14^th-15^th centuries under the Kingdom of Lanna.  A bit of the stucco decoration remains, but none of the sculptures, nor the upper parts of the buildings, but each is in a different style.  Another one stands on an island in the middle of a pond outside the compound walls.  Originally it stood on a small mound next to the Ping River.  But centuries later the river changed course and left the monument surrounded by a pool.

Buddha image, Wat Mae Klang Wiang

Tai Yong temple--Wat Pasang Ngam

       There’s no building in the village claiming to be Chamadevi’s natal home.  The peculiarity of the village, though, is that its residents are Mon, not Thai, descendants of ancestors from the Haripunchai era.  And they use the Mon language when speaking at home and within the community,

winding thread in Don Luang

       A more impressive set of ruins from old Haripunchai lies west of Lamphun at the former satellite town of Wiang Tha Kan, over the boundary in Sanpatong district of Chiang Mai Province.  Founded over a thousand years ago and abandoned after the Burmese conquest of Lanna mid-16^th century, the ruins are spread out over quiet rural neighborhoods.  A portion of the city moat remains. 

       Most of the ruins are just brick foundations, but a few have full sized chedis in fairly good condition.  The one at Wat Ku Mai Dang looks ready to topple over with the next earth tremor, though.  In front of one of the two chedis at Wat Mae Klang Wiang, a Buddha statue displays traits common to Mon-Khmer sculpture--very thick lips, for example, different from Thai Buddhas.  There’s an information center next to this site and a small museum with ceramics and other trade items from 13^th-14^th century China, indicating the town’s continuing prosperity after its absorption into the Kingdom of Lanna.

Don Luang house with loom

Don Luang street lamp

       By the time Mengrai learned of the existence of Haripunchai, its governing dynasty had changed.  Instead of Mon, the ruling family was from the Tai Yuan community, which had grown throughout the 13^th century.  Mengrai was also Tai Yuan and thus had natural allies in the government.  They eventually invited him in, so Mengrai conquered the city by subterfuge rather than combat.

       It was a more sophisticated city than Mengrai had ever imagined.  He decided to make it his kingdom’s religious center and modeled his own capital Chiang Mai on the layout of Haripunchai.  He and his successors patronized the monks there and sponsored new temples and renovations of old ones.  With the conquest of Lanna in the mid-16^th century Haripunchai lost its special status and became just another small town run by a Burmese vassal.

the Black Bridge in Lamphun

       When King Kawila of Lampang launched his campaign to evict the Burmese from northern Thailand, chaos soon swept the region.  Lamphun citizens joined sporadic rebellions against their Burmese overlords, but the latter responded by forcing people to leave the cities.  Kawila finally expelled the Burmese garrison from Chiang Mai in 1774, but by then it was a deserted city and would remain so for another two decades.

       In 1796, 500 years after Mengrai founded the city, Kawila officially re-established Chiang Mai as the capital of a resurrected Kingdom of Lanna, though as a vassal of Siam.  Burmese forces still controlled parts of the north and it took several years to kick them out completely.   Moreover, the re-born kingdom faced a severe under-population crisis.  People had fled the towns and villages and taken refuge in remote hills and forests.  Kawila had just settled people in Chiang Mai again, but Chiang Rai, Phayao, Fang and Lamphun were still empty.

       After Kawila’s forces had driven the Burmese out of Lanna territory entirely, he embarked on a new campaign to increase its population and make it an economically viable state.  Besides transferring people from Lampang and further south and enticing refugee farmers out of the hills and forests, he also organized raids into northeast Burma to capture people, not territory, and resettle them in Lanna.  Craft specialists were a high priority.

pasting gold leaf onto the Buddha's footprint

        The 1805 expedition targeted Muang Yong, a river town in northeast Burma’s Kengtung state.  Lanna forces removed 10,000 residents to relocate them in and around Lamphun.  The people were Tai Lu from Xishuangbanna, but after their removal became known as Tai Yong.  Linguistically and culturally they were similar to the Tai Yuan.  Their dialects, and that of the Tai Khoen in Kengtung, were close to the Kham Muang of Northern Thailand and used the same alphabet.  Their religious traditions were the same, as was their general way of life.  Their assimilation in their new home would prove easy.

       Nobody chronicled exactly how the Muang Yong operation proceeded.  Did Lanna soldiers round up the people at gunpoint, so to speak, and take them to Lanna as POW’s?  Or were they persuaded by arguments, promises or rewards?  The Tai Yong were able to bring their town’s guardian deity images with them and later install them in a temple in Pasang district.  So how do we label this episode, as abduction or as migration?

Wat Phra Phutthabat Tak Pha

       The Tai Yong live mostly in Pasang district, where they are famous as weavers, the skill that got them brought here originally.  Nowadays villages like Don Luang, four km south of Pasang, and Nong Ngeuak, a few km further, boast of a high reputation for their textiles, made on old-fashioned handlooms, mainly from locally cultivated cotton.  Both men and women are involved with the weaving process—spinning, winding thread and weaving.  Some produce silk cloth, with a unique pattern of small raised flowers on the surface of the fabric.

       Throughout the 19^th century the market for Pasang textiles was largely confined to a few northern provinces.  With the construction of a railway line and highway connecting Bangkok to Chiang Mai in the early 1920s this expanded, first to Bangkok and eventually to other parts of the country.  Lamphun quickly became integrated with the country, while the burgeoning teak trade brought a new prosperity.  The Black Bridge, on the railway line just south of the Lamphun station, is the most visible vestige of that era.

Buddha images inside Tham Luang Pha Wiang

       A century later, good roads now connect Lamphun city with all of its rural attractions as well.  One of the most popular locally is Wat Phutthabat Tak Pha, about six km south of Pasang.  It lies in a quiet valley and marks the spot where the Buddha, on a mission with some of his followers to spread the new religion, allegedly stopped here to wash his robe.  A pair of his (larger than life) footprints marks the spot inside the temple erected over it.

       The temple buildings are 20^th century constructions, but the site has been venerated since ancient times.  The monks and novices there now are from a Burmese Buddhist sect and wear red robes instead of yellow.  A gilded chedi stands atop the hill behind the compound, with a staircase in front of 467 steps.  But those who want to enjoy the mountain scenery have the option of taking a vehicle up the road to the summit.  Devotees come at any time to honor the footprints by sticking leaves of gold onto them.  The compound is especially crowded the 23^rd day of the 8^th lunar month, the festival for bathing the footprints.

at the mouth of Tham Luang Pha Wiang

       Further south down Highway 106, past the small town of Ban Hong, mountains dominate the landscape.  Chedis grace the crests of ridges and a turn 15 km past Ban Hong leads to Tham Luang Pha Wiang, the province’s best cave.  It contains several chambers with interesting stalactites and stalagmites.  The most impressive is the large stalagmite at the cave’s mouth, resembling a giant tooth.  A few small shrines and a bell are at the mouth as well, while the next chamber inside contains a row of Buddha images, for Thais traditionally consider natural caves holy places.

       Closer to Lamphun, to its southwest, on the summit of the hill Doi Tha Hin, is another rural attraction—the Golden Rock. .  It has the same name as the more famous one in southeast Myanmar and resembles it, but is actually two big gilded rocks on a cliff atop the hill, with a small chedi on top.  A couple of Buddha ‘footprints’ are in the vicinity, indicating a local belief that the Buddha passed this way. 

       Only a single monk lives there and it is several km from the nearest village.  Yet it is certainly worth a visit, especially in good weather.  The turnoff from the rural road is an easy ride of three km.  From the foot of the hill it’s 15 minutes walk to the summit.  The stairway is lined with statues of devotees and near the top are large statues of the 3^rd century monk Upakhu, with his hand in his begging bowl, and a seated Buddha.  Around the corner is the shrine itself, the improbably balanced boulders and a broad view of the countryside.     

the Golden Rock on Doi Tha Hin

side view of the Golden Rock

     The Golden Rock is scarcely mentioned in Lamphun tourist literature, perhaps because, like Tham Luang Pha Wiang, it’s a little far for a quick excursion.  The same can be said for other more distant sights in the province, like the Karen village of Mae Khanat, the woodcarving village in Mae Tha district and the railway tunnel at Doi Khuntan.  But for anyone with the time and interest to discover the special features of northern Thailand history and culture, Chiang Mai is a good start, but not enough.  Lamphun’s culture was not only earlier, it laid the foundations of civilization for the entire north.

shrine of the Golden Rock, Doi Tha Hin

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Chiang Mai Craft Traditions

                                                                 by Jim Goodman

street in Bosang village

       As with any modern city, traditional handicrafts in Chiang Mai are no longer an essential part of people’s everyday lives.  Rather than store things in fancy ceramic pots or baskets of split bamboo, folks use containers of rubber-plastic made in big factories.  Looms are no longer part of a typical household’s furniture, for people don’t make their own clothes but buy them ready-made in the market.  And children play with plastic toys now instead of the traditional ones of wood or clay.

making umbrellas in Bosang

       Yet the craft traditions have not died out, nor are they likely to in the near future.  Chiang Mai people have a strong sense of cultural awareness and a small, but important percentage of the residents will continue to patronize traditional crafts for the sake of preserving local culture.  Moreover, tourism has provided a new market and every visitor’s itinerary includes excursions to nearby villages long famous for handicrafts production—Bosang for umbrellas, Hangdong for woodcrafts, Muang Kung for pottery.

       The most popular trip is to Sankamphaeng, about 15 km east of the city, along a road studded with craft factories and shops of all kinds—ceramics, lacquer ware, silver jewelry, silk, wood carvings and paper products.  Bosang village, just over halfway to Sankamphaeng, is the most attractive spot.  Residents produce their own saa paper, from mulberry bark, to make umbrellas, fans and paper lanterns.

painting a paper fan

extracting thread from a silk cocoon

       The village lies on the north side of the Sankamphaeng road.  Many shop houses on the main street sport decorations of colorful umbrellas and paper lanterns and umbrella gates mark the entrances to the side streets.  Just inside Bosang’s entry gate is its umbrella production center, the main destination for the tour buses.  It features a huge store selling products from Bosang and the vicinity, like fans and umbrellas of all sizes and the paper lanterns popular at Loy Krathong time, while back behind the merchandise stalls sit the workers at their crafts.

winding the thread into loops

       Both men and women work at putting the tops on the umbrella sticks, but the fan painters are all male.  They sit at small stalls in front of a couple dozen designs.  The tourist chooses a fan and a design and the painter then paints that design on the fan while the customer watches.  When finished, he dries it with a hair-drier and it’s ready for immediate use.

       In addition to Bosang, a proper Sankamphaeng tour will take people to one of the major silk production centers, such as the Shinawatra factory or, closer to the super highway, the Thai Silk Village.  For its feel and its luster, silk is the luxury fabric, the favorite of upper classes in Asia since ancient times.  Visitors can marvel at the showroom stocks of bolts of silk cloth in every conceivable color.  They can also observe some of the steps involved in making the cloth.

young weaver, Thai Silk Village

       The process has hardly changed in four thousand years.  It begins when a tiny black caterpillar emerges from a silkworm egg and begins eating mulberry leaves.  It soon gets bigger and bigger and then retires to spin a cocoon of silk thread around itself.  Workers take bunches of these cocoons, toss them in a pot of boiling water and use a stick to tease the thread from the cocoons, which is wound into a ball.  Then they convert the balls into loops with a winding wheel, so that they can be dyed.

       Nowadays they use chemical dyes, which besides providing a greater range of colors, are easier to use.  The dye dissolves in the dye bath, whereas with natural dyes there was always the problem of tiny pieces of plant material sticking to the threads.  Silk absorbs dyes much better than cotton, with stronger and brighter hues.

celadon ware, Mengrai Kilns

       The next stop is to wind out the warp threads to the intended length of the cloth.  When this is done every other thread has to be separated by heddles and the whole lot inserted through the row of openings in the reed, to keep them separate and untangled, and tied to the end stick.  This is the most laborious part of the work.  The rest of the warp threads are tied around a drum and the weaving can begin. 

       This is not a very quick operation, either.  Every other heddle is connected to one of the two foot pedals and the remainder to the other pedal.  The weaver depresses one pedal to create an opening in the warp threads, then tosses a shuttle of weft thread through it.  She then draws the reed towards her a few times to knock the weft thread into place, depresses the other foot pedal to create a new opening and repeats the process.  It’s slow work and sometimes threads break and have to be retied, but a diligent weaver could produce two meters or more in a day.

celadon worker, Sankamphaeng

       In the past weaving was much more common.  Nearly every house had a loom, for people produced cloth to make their own clothes.  With the availability of ready-made clothing that’s no longer true.  But there is still a market in northern Thailand for hand-woven materials and weaving communities still exist near Mae Wang, south of Chomthong and north of Mae Rim.  There will always be a market for silk, too and it’s encouraging that at least half of Thai Silk Village’s weavers are young women.  At least some in the younger generation are taking up the traditional skill.

pigs with wings and other images, Mengrai Kilns 

       Silk is produced in other parts of Thailand, but a type of glazed stoneware called celadon is a specialty of the Chiang Mai region.  Its production originated in China two thousand years ago.  Celadon workshops opened in Sankamphaeng in the 14^th century, perhaps started by Chinese artisans who fled the Mongol invasion of China.  Production halted during the chaos of the late 18^th century, when the Burmese occupation ended, but revived in the beginning of the 20^th century.

       The basic ingredient for the celadon ware—cups, saucers, bowls, vases, statues, etc,--is a special local clay called “black earth.”  The artisan creates the shape of the item in the same way as other ceramics, building it up on a wheel, then allows it to dry naturally.  If there will be designs on the surface of the piece, another artist will apply these now and dry them before the first firing. 

antique lacquer ware, Wat Nantharam museum

       The “biscuit firing” comes next, at 800 degrees C. in a pot-shaped kiln.  Afterwards the artisans make a careful check for cracks and defects and then prepare the pieces to be dipped in the glaze.  Wood ash combined with rice field silt makes up the glaze.  When the pieces are all completely covered the workers then put them in a kiln and fire them at 1250-1300 degrees C., with a reduced amount of carbon dioxide.  This gives them a pale green color.  Depending upon how they are cooled and dried the surfaces will either be smooth or crackled with multiple tiny connected lines.

       Pale green is the natural celadon color, but with alterations in the process other colors are possible.  Allowing more oxygen during the second firing results in colors from olive green to yellow to brown.  Using the ashes of rice stalks, beanstalks or bamboo for the glaze instead of wood ash produces yet more colors.   All these colors are attractive and ’cool’—nothing bright or gaudy—and augment the elegance of the items.

wood crafts, Hangdong road

      Lacquer ware is another craft common around Chiang Mai, though not unique to the area.  Northern Thailand is in the tropical zone and therefore things made of wood, bamboo or rattan are vulnerable to insect attack, as well as dampness.  Coating an item with lacquer provided a protective, weatherproof finish that prolonged its life and use.  For large storage urns and bowls or for the cabinets holding a temple’s religious palm-leaf manuscripts, this was a critical factor.  Also, because of their final glossy sheen, lacquered artifacts always looked nicer that those that were not. 

shop in Ban Tawai

       Like celadon, the lacquer technique is quite ancient and began in China.  The lacquer here comes from the treated, dyed and dried sap of a type of lacquer tree (Toxicodendron vernicifluum) common in northern Thailand and Myanmar.  The sap is originally red, but with the addition of a little iron oxide can turn to black.  Several coats are applied, each one allowed to dry thoroughly.  The lacquer can also be a base for adding golden imagery, gilding the item or for inlaying designs in glass or mother-of-pearl. 

       Except for Bosang, craft production on the Sankamphaeng route takes place in the big commercial factory compounds.  South of Chiang Mai, however, are two villages that specialize in a single craft—Hangdong for woodcarving and Muang Kung for ceramics.

old kilns near Muang Kung

       About 15 km south of Chiang Mai’s old quarter a big sign in English marks the Hangdong intersection.  The new, wealthier residential neighborhoods lie to the west.  Upon turning east, typical old woodcarving shop houses begin nearly at once.  Further down the road are larger work compounds, their products displayed in the yards or shops in front.  Several km further on is the junction where a right turn south goes to Ban Tawai, the primary destination of the tour buses.

       Ban Tawai is Hangdong’s major production center, a warren of small workshops and their displays.  It was set up in the 1960s, when tourism was in its infancy and the customers were from the growing Chiang Mai middle class.  It’s larger now, of course, but makes a pleasant walk through shady lanes while passing a staggering variety of wood products, from furniture to sculptures.

entrance to Muang Kung village

       Boxes, cabinets, beds, tables, chairs and stools comprise the furniture products.  Carvings are both religious and secular and in all sizes.  The religious ones can be giant reproductions of famous Buddhist sculptures in the region or as small votive images suitable for family altars.  The secular carvings can be big sculptures of mythological heroes or dragons down to small images of frogs, birds and elephants.

     The frog has notches on its back and when a stick is rolled across it makes a sound like the ”rib-bid” of a frog on a summer night.  The birds, owls and elephants have a hole on top and when blown the carving sounds like a tweeting bird, hooting owl or trumpeting elephant.

Muang Kung shop display

       A few km north of Hangdong on the way back to Chiang Mai, next to the junction for the road to Samoeng, lies the pottery village of Muang Kung.  A huge sculpture of an earthen long-necked water pot stands beside the village entrance arch.  Some shops are in the field next to the arch, but one passes more while wandering through the village.  City tour agencies can even arrange pottery lessons for visitors.  While it has been a major ceramics center for over two centuries, Muang Kung did not even exist in classic Lanna times.

Baan Phor Liang Meun art

       In 1774 King Kawila of Lampang, assisted by Siamese allies, expelled the Burmese from Chiang Mai, which they had conquered in 1558.  But as a result of years of suppressed revolts, deportations and general chaos, Chiang Mai and other urban centers were deserted.  The city became the haunt of tigers and other beasts.  To reconstitute Lanna as a state, Kawila had to repopulate it.  And so he launched raids into northeast Burma to kidnap people and bring them to live and work in Lanna. 

      Mostly these were Tai Khoen people, a Tai sub-group culturally and linguistically close to the Tai Yuan who populated Lanna.   Priority was on those with special craft skills.  Muang Kung’s ancestors came from pottery villages near Kengtung and that city’s silversmiths and lacquer specialists were captured and resettled in the Haiya neighborhood just south of Chiang Mai Gate.  Wualai Road is full of silver shops and lacquer work still carries on in the lanes around Wat Nantharam, which also has a small museum of the wares and the condition of the antiques matches that of newly made items, evidence of lacquer’s durability.

terracotta heads, Baan Phor Liang Meun

       On the other side of the moat, in the southwest quarter of the old town, are two establishments catering to ceramic enthusiasts.  One is Mengrai Kilns, on a lane off Arak Road, with a stock of excellent celadon wares, as well as some unglazed items and a quiet garden in the back of the showrooms.  The items include all the crockery associated with domestic life, but also some imaginative sculptures like flying elephants and pigs with wings,

       The other is Baan Phor Liang Meun, around the corner from Chiang Mai Gate.  Its workshops are across the lane from the courtyard, with a coffee shop, that is the main display of its works.  These are terracotta sculptures replicating the styles of famous works of the region—Khmer, Thai, Javanese, Han Chinese and Indian.  All around are standing full body sculptures, half-body and heads, friezes and steles, making it altogether a wonderful place to have a drink and snack and appreciate an enduring skill of Chiang Mai’s crafts tradition.

sculptures in the garden of Baan Phor Liang Meun

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