Why Chiang Mai?

                                                                         by Jim Goodman

Chang Puak Gate and Doi Suthep

       Thirty years have passed since I decided to make Chiang Mai my home.  Of course the city is much bigger now, more congested, more polluted, but that’s true almost everywhere.  It swarms with tourists during the dry months and is still pretty crowded even in the rainy season.  But increasing tourism is a permanent phenomenon for any attractive destination and Chiang Mai gets such attention because it truly deserves it.  Its location, size, cultural features, religious and historical monuments all contribute to its popularity for travelers, and were precisely the characteristics that first enchanted me. 

the iron bridge across the Ping River

       The city lies on a broad plain between the mountain Doi Suthep to the west and the Ping River to the east.  With mountains on the horizon, especially north and west, towering trees both right inside the city and gracing the banks of the moats and the river, Chiang Mai is easy on the eyes. 

       Even with its expansion over the past three decades, it’s still a small city.  Traffic can be pretty heavy at times, yet if you’re on a motorbike instead of driving a car, even in rush hour you can be in the quiet, clean-air countryside in less than half an hour.  Most of the city traffic emanates from the business district near the river and the suburbs.  The old town, the main focus for tourists, experiences far less traffic.

Ku Ruang, the southwest bastion

       Chiang Mai dates its creation to 1296, founded by Mengrai, King of Lanna, a state that at its peak comprised most of the provinces of Northern Thailand.  Roughly square-shaped, 1.5 km per side, surrounded by moats, the city had five entry gates, bastions at the four corners and brick walls connecting them.  Mainly the extended royal family and some of the nobility lived within the walls, while commoners dwelt outside.  From its inception the city had many temples and another large portion of the city’s population were resident monks. 

       Today the old town has about forty temples within the moats and many more in the neighborhoods beyond them.  One cannot walk very far without passing by a temple compound and the high sloping roofs of the viharn, the main assembly building, and the spires of the chedi, the reliquary building shaped like an inverted bell that stands behind the viharn, are often taller than surrounding secular buildings.  Towering skyscrapers are absent from the old town, and much of the rest of the city as well, a factor adding to the pleasure of exploring it.

Wat Phra Singh compound

       In the early 90s, though, real estate speculation threatened to turn Chiang Mai into a Little Bangkok.  Condos and high-rise hotels began going up at a frantic pace.  Ownership changed hands several times before the building’s completion.   Meanwhile debris from the construction process fell into people’s yards and monastery compounds.

       By the mid-90s city residents were more than just annoyed.  Before work began on the Rimping Condominium next to the Nakhon Ping Bridge, angry neighbors called in monks to curse the ground.  Then they put up a banner just across the street announcing what they had done.  The condo went up anyway, but after its completion it was nearly three years before anyone moved into it.

ruins at Wat Chedi Luang

       The governor rebutted these complaints by stating that Chiang Mai needed development and that meant more condos and hotels.  But shortly after that an earthquake struck, cracking four of the condos.  Nobody was hurt and it fact it was a mild tremor, but it did scare people living near anything tall.  Then the governor himself died in a helicopter crash.  His successor reversed policy and limited new buildings within the city limits to six stories.  Those that had already begun construction were permitted to rise according to the original plan.  But since then, the six-story rule has held and all the tall buildings standing in the city today are at least twenty years old. 

sculpted horses at Wat Khun Kha Ma

       Thus Chiang Mai did not become Little Bangkok after all.  It retained its identity as a small, pedestrian-friendly city, full of historical and religious monuments, free of the hustle and bustle of a major metropolis, even though it’s Thailand’s second largest city.  There are no industrial complexes or big factories in the area and tourism, broadly defined, is the biggest industry. 

       Temples and the historical remnants are the main tourist attractions.  Temples all over Thailand feature ancient chedis, outstanding sculptures and so forth and so do various Chiang Mai temples.  The most famous chedi is that at Wat Chedi Luang, which in the 15^th century stood 95 meters tall, truly the region’s first religious skyscraper.  A major earthquake in 1545 knocked down the upper part, never rebuilt.  What’s left of it still rises higher than all other buildings around it.

Tha Pae Gate

       Some temples are unique to Chiang Mai.  I include Wat Lamchang, Temple of the Tethered Elephants, erected on old Lanna’s royal elephant stable and full of elephant statues in the compound.  Not far away is Wat Khun Kha Ma, built on the former royal stables after an epidemic slew the horses and the distraught owner wanted to commemorate his beloved animals.  Finally, there is Wat Lokmolee, across the northeast side of the moat, which has a special shrine to Chiraprapha, the only Queen Regnant in Lanna history, who ruled briefly about a dozen years before the Burmese conquered the city in 1558.

       All these details became familiar to me the more I explored Chiang Mai, augmenting my appreciation of the city.  In 1996 the city celebrated its 700^th anniversary by restoring some of the old temples and city walls.  Wat Lokmolee’s restoration came only this century, along with a few other temples.  This exemplified another notable feature of Chiang Mai.  Its people have a strong sense of their own separate cultural and historical development, without that sliding into nationalism or separatism, such as affects the Shan in Myanmar.  One manifestation of that is keeping their historical monuments in good shape and restoring whatever can be restored.

alms-giving in the old town

       When the Japanese occupied Chiang Mai they tore down the gates and walls to use the bricks to make new roads.  They left the four corner bastions standing though, but it was not until the late 1960s that the city got around to reconstructing the gates.  And only in the mid-90s were parts of the walls rebuilt.

       Of the city gates, the most important today is Tha Pae Gate, the eastern one, with a large plaza in front and the only one vehicular traffic cannot pass through.  It’s popular in the morning with tourists who want to pose for photos with the pigeons.  It is also the venue for special city events—beauty contests, stage shows, New Year’s countdown--and festival processions pass by here.  Opposite Chang Puak Gate, the northern one, and right next to Chiang Mai Gate, the southern one, food stalls open at night, with a variety of inexpensive meals on offer.

northern beauty on a Loy Krathong float

Flower Festival procession

       Another example of the Northern Thai people’s cultural consciousness is their enthusiastic celebration of the city’s festivals.  A majority of these are Buddhist events and largely restricted to gatherings at the temples, though one of them, Buddha’s birthday, includes a procession up Doi Suthep the night before.  Religion is still a major factor in local people’s lives and many Chiang Mai residents rise early to donate food, money and other daily necessities into the monks’ begging bowls when they make their morning rounds.

summer flowers on Rattanakosin Street

       Others are basically secular, even if they have accompanying rituals.  The most famous is Songkran, 13-15 April, marking the traditional Thai New Year.  It’s also known as the Water-Throwing Festival, after its primary activity—people throwing water on each other the whole day long for three days.  After one experience of it I have tended to avoid it over the years.

       The most attractive event is Loy Krathong, held for three days around the full moon of November.  People make krathongs—small boats made out of banana leaf, containing flowers, incense and a candle—and float them in the Ping River.  This is done to persuade the river goddess to cease the rain, for it’s harvest time soon, and take the waters back, by giving her a beautiful send-off.  Processions, fireworks, stage shows and thousands of floating lanterns wafting into the sky these nights make it the most spectacular and enjoyable public event of the year.

flowering trees on the northern moat

       The Tourism Authority of Thailand added another annual event to the calendar with the creation of the Flower Festival the first weekend of February.  Heavily decorated floats on flatbed trucks file in a procession from the train station all the way through downtown Chiang Mai to Buag Had Park in the southwest part of the old town.  Here they stay another day, while various food and commercial stalls set up on adjacent streets. 

       For a resident then, Chiang Mai has regular public events to punctuate the year.  Some are rather sedate temple affairs, but others, like Loy Krathong, are spectacles worth seeing every time they occur.  Loy Krathong occurs at the beginning of the cool, dry season, the most comfortable time of year.  Temperatures drop somewhat the next couple months, but not to the level of more northern countries.  It never snows here or at night gets colder than ten degrees Celsius. 

200 year-old tree at Wat Chedi Luang

sacred trees on the road to Lamphun

       From March through May is the hot, dry season, with temperatures reaching up to forty degrees Celsius in the daytime.  Yet the nights are pleasant and in compensation for the heat, tropical fruits abound in the market and flowers bloom on the trees along the moat and throughout the suburbs.  When the rains commence in June-July, the temperatures drop a bit and the rain comes mostly at night and rarely all day long.

monk procession on a Buddhist holy day

Lahu Shehleh in Warorot Market

      Besides their colorful displays when they blossom, some of Chiang Mai’s trees are believed to be home to guardian spirits, like the towering dipterocarp planted by Kawila at Chedi Luang, after he resurrected Chiang Mai in 1796, following the expulsion of the Burmese.  The biggest trees in temple courtyards date from the compound’s original construction or a major renovation.  To honor the tree’s guardian spirit, devotees place poles at its base to prop it up and relieve the stress of its weight.  Other venerable trees feature shrines in front and the tall trees parallel to the old road south to Lamphun are wrapped in yellow robes to indicate their sanctity.  They make this route the most beautiful drive in any direction outside Chiang Mai.

street mural, Loi Kroa Road

       Modern Chiang Mai has its supermarkets and shopping malls, but the traditional markets, like Warorot and Muang Mai along the river, are still quite active, the latter all night long.  The scenes here are sometimes enhanced by visits of ethnic minorities from the mountains, dressed in their traditional clothing, especially Lahu Shehleh, Hmong, Akha and Palong, which adds an exotic, colorful aspect to the streets, yet another attraction of life in Chiang Mai. 

       Night markets are also popular, especially with tourists, both the Night Bazaar on Changklang Road and the ‘walking street’ weekend markets Saturday on Wualai Road, southeast of Chiang Mai Gate, and Sundays on the road between Tha Pae Gate and Wat Phra Singh.  Lanna handicrafts dominate the goods on sale, from hill tribe products to items from long-established specialty villages, like celadon wares from San Kamphaeng, umbrellas from Bor Sang, woodcarvings from Hangdong and silver and lacquer creations from Chiang Mai’s Haiya district.

       In addition to its traditional crafts, Chiang Mai is one of the country’s prime artistic centers, home to many modern artists.  The city has several galleries and art and photography exhibitions take place throughout the year.  Imaginative street artists have also covered bare compound walls with their works and when riding around familiar routes I often come across new murals that cause me to stop for a bit and appreciate.

rising of a 'super moon' over the banks of the Ping River

       Beyond the city’s assets, which I am constantly discovering the longer I stay here, Chiang Mai is close to other attractions in the region.  It is a short, pleasant drive to ancient Lamphun, whose moats, walls and religious architecture had a profound impact on Mengrai and his foundation of Chiang Mai.  The hills, valleys and gardens of Mae Rim are less than an hour away going north.  Hmong, Lahu and Karen villages are within easy reach, while Akha, Lisu, Palong and Yao villages are further on.  Forest parks and scenic reservoirs are also within easy access, while the Ping River itself is most attractive near the city and a great venue for sunset and moonrise viewing.

       All these features make the city increasingly popular with tourists, but they hardly ever get in my way.  Tourism development has basically meant more hotels and restaurants, so if I fancy a different meal than the local food that I ordinarily prefer, I can choose among a variety of Chinese, Vietnamese, Indian, German, French, American and Italian restaurants.  It’s obvious why Chiang Mai became a tourist hub, as well as a favorite place for retirees and pensioners.  They are all here for the same reasons that lured me to remain for three decades so far, with little inclination to seek anything conceivably better.

wooden foot-bridge over the northern moat

                                                                        * * *

       

In the Shadows of History—a Visit to Chiang Saen

                                                           by Jim Goodman

Mekong RIver at Chiang Saen

       When I first moved to Chiang Mai in the winter of 1988, intending an indefinite stay, I wanted to also familiarize myself with various places in the north.  Chiang Saen was on my list because it lay beside the Mekong River and was just ten kilometers from the famous Golden Triangle, the junction of Thailand, Laos and Myanmar.  Arriving at Chiang Saen in the early afternoon I headed there right away.

       It was moderately impressive, I suppose.  It was dry season, so a large triangular sandbar was visible next to the confluence of the Mae Sai River with the Mekong, and I wondered if that was the “Golden Triangle.”   Of course, the term actually refers to the tri-national border point.  On the Thai side a huge bi-lingual billboard announced this fact and Thai tourists liked to pose standing beneath it with their arms stretched overhead and fingers pointing to the message on the sign.  There wasn’t much else to do there, except maybe have a few drinks and fantasize what was happening in the two countries on the other side, both of which were closed to foreigners then.  Opium caravans?  Remnant insurgent armies on patrol?

modern temple, Chiang Saen riverside

       With all the souvenir shops and such, though, it was not a place to kick back and revel in the river scenery.  That proved to be easier back in Chiang Saen, where I had a riverside lodge and lots of room on either side to wander quietly along the bank.  The town was smaller than I expected, with no real downtown area, no tall buildings, a small produce market and hardly any traffic.   That was Chiang Saen in 1988.  Several centuries earlier, however, it was one of the most important urban centers in Northern Thailand.

       According to the Chiang Saen Chronicles, Tai migrants from Yunnan set up the first state there, called Wiang Nonok, near present-day Chiang Saen, over a thousand years ago.  It lasted until the mid-11^th century, when the capital is supposed to have disappeared into a swamp, perhaps because of an earthquake, which scholars speculate may be the contemporary Chiang Saen Lake outside the town.  The Lawa then took over the area until displaced by Tai Yuan the beginning of the 13^th century.  The Lawa retreated to distant hills, as they were to do a century later when the Tai Yuan conquered the Chiang Mai area.

typical Chiang Saen stilted house

      The victors called their new capital Ngon Yang and as more migrants came to live in the area they gradually expanded their realm west into the Mai Kok Valley and beyond.  In 1259 Mengrai was born in Ngon Yang but soon after he succeeded to the throne he left to found a new capital at Chiang Rai.  Years later, in 1291, he conquered the former Mon Kingdom of Haripunchai, moved there for a couple years and eventually founded Chiang Mai in 1296 as the capital of the Kingdom of Lanna.

Chedi Luang in 1988

       The administration moved with Mengrai’s changes of capitals, but much of the population of Ngon Yang stayed put.  That included members of the royal family.  When Mengrai died in 1317 his successor reigned from Chiang Mai, but when he died in 1325, the third king, Saen Phu, decided to stay in Ngon Yang, rebuild and refurbish the city, and rename it after himself—Chiang Saen.  It remained the capital of Lanna until 1350, when the Court removed permanently to Chiang Mai.  

       This was Chiang Saen’s heyday and the best of its historical relics, like Chedi Luang and Wat Pasak, date from this period.  At its peak the city had 76 temples within its city walls and another 63 outside of them.  Even after the capital moved to Chiang Mai Chiang Saen remained one of the most important cities in Lanna, especially as a border post.  The Chiang Saen garrison repelled an attack from Yunnan in 1422.  The invaders returned three years later, but a storm destroyed their river fleet.

       While Lanna’s fortunes waxed and waned in the 15^th-16^th centuries, life in the periphery city of Chiang Saen continued undisturbed.  This changed in 1600 when Burmese armies swept into Chiang Rai and Chiang Saen.  For the next two centuries the Burmese ruled over Chiang Saen and imposed a new social order.  At the top were the Burmese administrators.  Next were other Burmese, like traders and merchants.  Third was the local nobility, some of whom were entrusted with low-level administrative duties.  Last was everybody else who was living there.

Sukhothai-style chedi at Wst Pa Sak

       Among the extant ruins of Chiang Saen, none of them appear to date their construction after 1600.  Being Buddhists themselves, the Burmese overlords did not destroy any of the existing temples and chedis.  They may even have contributed to their upkeep.  But they didn’t sponsor any new ones.  Other places in Northern Thailand under two centuries of Burmese occupation, Lampang and Mai Hong Son for example, feature Burmese-style temples, but not Chiang Saen.

       Sporadic revolts against the Burmese overlords occurred throughout their occupation.  None of these were very serious or durable until 1727, when rebels from Chiang Mai advanced against Chiang Saen.  The Burmese garrison repulsed the attack.  A generation later, though, another Chiang Mai rebel force captured Chiang Saen in 1751 and held it for four years before the Burmese recovered it. 

14th century Buddha head

mythical kalan, Wat Pa Sak

       Whatever weaknesses existed in the Burmese military then certainly got rectified over the next decade.  In 1767 the Burmese conquered and destroyed their Thai rival Ayutthaya.  This was their apogee and after that their fortunes began to decline.  They were not strong enough to occupy all of Ayutthaya’s territory and soon faced revolts in Northern Thailand.  Only Chiang Saen remained manageable.  The Burmese response to revolts in northern Thai cities was to empty them of their entire populations.  Chiang Saen didn’t revolt, so that city was spared such a fate.

stone carvings, Wat Pa Sak chedi

       The native response was to continue efforts to drive out the occupiers and re-establish abandoned cities like Chiang Mai.  This provoked a furious Burmese attack in 1797, reducing the city’s inhabitants to near starvation, but Thai reinforcements, supported by the Chakri regime in Bangkok, eventually lifted the siege.  Northern Thai forces under Kawila counterattacked the Burmese and by the end of the century only Chiang Saen remained under Burmese control.

       The long and grueling campaign had devastated Lanna, both urban and rural areas.  Kawila’s initial task was to re-establish some kind of administration over the liberated lands and rebuild and re-populate the emptied cities.  Finally, in 1803 his forces laid siege to Chiang Saen.  The Burmese garrison held out for a year before the city’s capture.  Those not killed or taken prisoner fled across to Burma.  Kawila then ordered the entire local population out of Chiang Saen and re-settled them and the prisoners in other parts of the north.

Only one foot remains.

      For the next seven decades nobody lived in Chiang Saen.  Nature took over the old city.  Seventy monsoons nurtured the growth of jungle vegetation that swarmed over the temples and buildings.  Teak trees sprouted in abundance in the temple compounds, crowding around the chedis and poking through the temple roofs.  The slightest earth tremors jolted loose the bricks on the buildings, causing then to crack, tilt or topple.

       In 1878, after hearing that Chiang Saen’s ruins had become a meeting place for bandits, the government in Bangkok decided it was time to re-populate the city and set up a local government and police station.  It arranged the transfer of 1000 people from Chiang Mai, 1000 from Lampang and 500 from Lamphun to Chiang Saen.  The result was little short of disastrous.  Rice was scarce and other food like fruit and chicken was unavailable.  Venomous snakes, tigers and other dangerous animals constantly threatened the free movement of settlers. 

       By 1913 Chiang Saen’s population was down to seventy persons, served by two restored temples, a district administrative office and a police station.  Many had died from the unexpected hardships.  Others had sneaked back to the cities from which they had come.  The town’s future looked pretty bleak, but somehow it survived.  It never developed into the kind of city it was in the past, but by the time of my excursion there in 1988 its contemporary residents far outnumbered the batch sent there to revive it in 1878.

"Tilting Chedi"

chedi in the jungle

    Yet it was still a small town, with the kind of ambience associated with small towns, very laid back, friendly, with nobody in a hurry to do anything.  Segments of the old city wall still stood and one could trace the boundaries of old Chiang Saen by walking around the wall foundations.  It surprised me that it was more or less the size of Chiang Mai within its moats.  But the rebuilt town itself, its residential and commercial areas combined, only occupied about 30% of its former area.  Other than a few stilted wooden houses here and there beyond the last residential neighborhood, the rest was forest and the ruined monuments of past glory.      

       The tigers had all left decades ago, so other than keeping an eye open for any kraits or cobras lying around, it was a safe stroll.  The forest begins where the residential suburbs end and the historic ruins lie.  The first one I encountered was Chedi Luang, the biggest of the ancient monuments, like an inverted cone 88 meters high, surrounded by teak trees even taller.  As part of renovating the city he chose to live in rather than Chiang Mai, King Saen Phu sponsored its construction in 1331 to house a relic of the Buddha’s breastbone.

chedi in the teak forest

       In a small clearing just past Chedi Luang lay Wat Pa Sak, first built in 1295 and expanded in the 1340s.  Of the main temple building only the columns remained.  The chedi behind it was modeled after a prototype from Sukhothai, a Thai kingdom southwest of Lanna, and built to contain relics of the Buddha’s right ankle.  While some of the stucco covering on the chedi walls had fallen off, the middle section still featured fine stone carvings of humans, mythical creatures, standing Buddhas and intricate floral and geometric designs. 

       The extant sculptural art at Wat Pa Sak kept me engaged there longer than at any other site.  After Wat Pa Sak the state of preservation of the monuments proved to be far inferior.  The atmosphere prevailed, though, and while nothing equivalent turned up on the route to match Wat Pa Sak, other attractions ensued.  For one, I came across a chedi perilously leaning to one side with a gaping hole in its center.  I nicknamed it the Tilting Chedi and wondered if it could withstand the next strong pre-monsoon storm.

       At another point the remains of a large sculpted foot rested atop a ruined brick mound.  Thick jungle stood behind it and I couldn’t discover another such foot.  But it did make me wonder if this was the remains of some sort of Buddha Colossus of Chiang Saen.  Elsewhere I spotted chedis all but obscured by trees and big bushes and on my way back to town passed a pair of ruined monuments right beside a house.  I wanted to ask its residents what it was like to live literally in the shadows of history, but couldn’t speak Thai enough to get beyond pleasantries.  Did it bring them any luck, for example, to be beside ancient religious sculptures, even if they were but remnants?  But I had to conclude my exploration without any answers to my conjectures.

the ruins next door

       Twenty years later I passed through Chiang Saen again, arriving after dark on a boat trip from Jinghong in Yunnan, China.  The boat docked south of the town.  I was burdened with luggage then, my left arm in a cast and no transportation was available from the port to the main part of the town.  On my difficult walk through the town from south to north I did notice that it wasn’t much bigger than two decades ago:  a few new bank buildings, a slightly bigger commercial zone and an extension into perhaps 10% more of the old city area.  Weather was bad in the morning, so I headed straight to Chiang Mai, without another look at the relics.  It’s not far.  I can always come back.  But I didn’t make that decision soon enough.

       Unfortunately, three years later, March of 2011, an earthquake struck the area, sent Chedi Luang crashing to the ground, damaged Wat Pa Sak and three other chedis.  (I don’t know if the “Tilting Chedi” was one of them.)  None of the town’s residents were killed or injured, so for them the tragedy was cultural, not personal, and so not especially disruptive.  Eventually funds will be found to restore the damaged monuments.  The population will expand and more trees will be cut down to make room for houses even more directly in the shadows of Chiang Saen’s history.  And the town’s atmosphere will still resemble what it basically was in 1988.  

monks on the river at Chiang Saen

                                                                    * * *