Thailand is famous among tourists who demand a big charge for the nightlife in Bangkok, the full moon parties on the island of Koh Phangan and the hedonistic promenades in Pattaya. It’s also a magnet for the bohemian and wellness crowds who flock to the mountain destinations of Chiang Mai and Pai.
But mostly overlooked by foreign tourists is Lampang, in Northern Thailand. This utterly charming riverside town of around 90,000 has retained its historic architecture and imposing plazas from its days as an important city in the ancient Lanna kingdom and a hub in the teak timber trade. Centuries-old wooden temples and two-story teak mansions from the late 1800s and early 1900s still stand, and alongside the Wang River, the streets in Kat Kong Ta enclave are like an open-air museum of well-preserved Chinese shops and European buildings in gingerbread style.
All over the city are extremely friendly residents, as well as statues and images of chickens — from manhole covers to traffic circles. Chickens are the symbol of Lampang and feature in its ceramics, recognized throughout Thailand, which include bowls and cups hand-painted with black and red roosters.
The charm in Lampang does not come from amusements and attractions manufactured for tourists, but from exploring integral parts of a functioning city. The shops have evolved into boutiques and cafes. The pottery factory shops are ideal for gift shopping. Even the horse-drawn carriages that ran around town carrying tourists were originally the main transit for train passengers after the station opened in 1916.
View of the river, khao soi and Buddha power
I first heard about Lampang in 2022 when my wife, Susan, and I moved to Chiang Mai and met a doctor named Lawrence Nelson, a retired physician-researcher known as a Doc of the National Institutes of Health in the United States. He recommended a visit, and in early January, we finally started our five-day visit to Lampang on a spartan four-car train from Chiang Mai (for less than $1 each) on a 2.5-hour ride through the wooded valley that nestles the city .
You can find dozens of suitable lodgings and hotels for less than $50 a night, and few more expensive than that. We lucked out with a spacious room at Kanecha’s Home, a family-run lodge in the heart of the city overlooking the Wang River and the white, dragon-supported Ratsada Phisek Bridge.
We cycled along the quiet riverside lane, reflecting the shiny silver bars of a temple, in search of a signature Northern Thai dish, khao soi. We found a delicious version of the curry noodle soup at the roadside restaurant Jay Jay Chan (a sign with a Thai script that looked like “17” meant it was vegetarian), with a neat buffet station on the shady sidewalk and a large wok that gurgles with vegetable soup. Total bill, 120 baht or about $3.40, including several delicious sesame-dusted black bean bars.
Late that afternoon, we wandered around town. The weather was perfect, in the mid-80s, and the sky was streaked with puffs. We walked through the green, tree-shaded town square, passing a shrine with three tall teak pillars that locals wrapped in colorful ribbons for an auspicious start to 2024.
A square concrete building was closing when we stopped at a flower shop on the sidewalk across the street. A man named Reangprakaiy Decha waved hello and went on to say that his family has been selling bunches of daisies and chrysanthemums and garlands of orange marigolds for temple offerings for 50 years.
Mr Reangprakaiy, 39, meditates daily “to be sharper. not to deceive people, but to help them,” he said. Why, I asked, did the city seem so peaceful, the people so friendly? He told us it had to do with the power of a certain Buddha statue.
Nearby is a beautiful temple, Wat Phra Kaeo Don Tao Suchadaram, Mr. Reangprakaiy said, where legend has it that in the 1400s, an elephant carrying the sacred emerald Buddha statue of Thailand went to Lampang and did not move. The statue adorned the temple for 32 years. It is now enshrined in the Grand Palace in Bangkok, but its energy remains, he said.
“We believe that the power of this Buddha statue is very strong,” said Mr. Reangprakaiy, “and it spreads for the Thai people to be peaceful and happy.”
Bananas and ubiquitous chicken bowls
Mornings are for shopping in Lampang and before sunrise, the main market on the north side of Ratsada Phisek Bridge is a flurry of everything from pig heads to live eels, fried fish to fresh vegetables. When we approached the entrance, where orange-robed monks stood guard with their alms, we found a model of ingenuity – a deconstructed banana. It was broken down on a metal table into piles of the fruit, flowers and stem (all edible) and stacks of flat, dark green leaves, used throughout the market to wrap cooked delicacies such as bitter melon, pork and rice.
We then used the ride-hailing feature on the Grab app for a lift to the next market, on the west side of town and next to Nhong Krathing Park. We found dozens of bamboo stalls offering traditional breakfasts such as quail eggs and rice flour muffins and the perfect cup of coffee from local farms. Strings of amplified guitar and tinkling brass mixed with the chatter of locals dressed in running and cycling gear and squatting on little stools under a canopy of plum and fig trees.
That afternoon, we rented a motorbike and headed two miles southeast to get to the chicken bottom of town.
Local Thais tell the story of how the Buddha came to the city and the deity Indra disguised himself as a rooster to ensure the residents woke up to give alms. A more recent explanation can be found in the Dhanabadee pottery factory, which claims to be the original source of Lampang’s ubiquitous chicken bowls.
On a tour of the factory and museum, an English-speaking guide said that the factory’s founder moved from China in the 1950s, discovering that the local white kaolin mineral was ideal for making ceramics. He opened a factory and, borrowing a motif popular in China for centuries, hand-painted chickens on cups and bowls. The adoration of Lampang chicken bowls spread throughout Thailand over the decades, and now there are many workshops and factories producing chicken-adorned tableware.
“Good life this year”
Almost everywhere you turn, there is a temple. We spent a day visiting a handful, including Wat Phrathat Lampang Luang, built in the 1400s and thought to be one of Thailand’s oldest teak buildings.
Walking the grounds of a Buddhist temple in Thailand can be both enchanting and confusing, just as Susan and I felt.
We encountered a mysterious rope strung from the 14-story stone stupa with a golden cord in the courtyard, and at the bottom of the cloth arrangement was a row of flowers, bells, Thai coin streamers, and a bolt of orange cloth.
As I regretted not having a tour guide, three Thai visitors approached us in the courtyard, asking if we wanted to learn about the temple. The two men were old friends from college, now in their 60s: One was an artist from Lampang, the other a developer, along with his wife, who splits his time between Bangkok and Atlanta.
The trio spent over an hour escorting us around the temple and Cheerapanyatip Chamrak, the artist, explained the background of the rope. The offerings, he said, were taken to the sky each night this first weekend of the New Year, in prayer to the Buddha “to protect you and have a good life this year.”
Wealth based on logging
After moving south of the city to the lush and tranquil Lampang River Lodge, a teak and bamboo suite overlooking a lily-bedecked pond, we met Doc for lunch at the gabled house of Lampang’s first governor, built in turn of the 20th century and is now occupied by the Baan Phraya Suren restaurant.
Satisfied with our plates of Royal Fried Rice and Pork with Egg and Spicy Roast Pork Salad, we talked about how Doc met his wife, originally from Lampang, when he was working in the Washington, DC area, and how, after first visiting Lampang in 2017, he soon helped support a local university’s research on women’s health.
He likened the town to Brigadoon, a mythical Scottish town that only comes alive once every 100 years. “When I first went to nursing college I felt like I was in a 1950s black-and-white movie,” she said.
We had an appointment that afternoon to go back in time with Jantharaviroj Korn, whose great-grandfather came to Lampang from Burma 126 years ago to work for timber baron Louis Leonowens, Anna’s son, the British teacher for the King’s children. of Siam, immortalized in the musical “The King and I”.
We met Mr. Jantharaviroj, 60, at his 108-year-old grandfather’s mansion. Thailand was a rarity in Southeast Asia to avoid colonization by European powers, but the British made generous concessions for teak: the Thais did the hard work and many Burmese moved into the area with the British (who had colonized Burma and exploited her teak) to act as stewards and the timber barons themselves, he said.
Mr. Jantharaviroj’s family became rich from logging, he said, but his ancestors made amends for stripping teak forests.
“My grandparents believed that if we cut down the tree, we destroy the spirit’s abode, so we must build the temple,” he said, adding that his grandparents contributed significantly to several Burmese-style temples in Lampang.
Our last day was reserved for the temple in the sky, Wat Phra Phutthabat Sutthawat, about an hour’s drive north. The only local guide I could find was from out of town and he referred us to a young woman who picked us up at 4am to watch the sunrise at the top of the mountain. The problem was that the park office didn’t open until 7:30.
The wait was worth it.
After carving a one-lane road in the bed of a truck, we climbed steep stairs to a jagged limestone plateau with ornate wooden shrines perched on the rocks. Each had gongs or bells, and we struck each three times with a prayer, the reverberations mingling with the chirping of birds and a gentle breeze. We were alone as the mist evaporated from the forest half a mile below until a Dutch couple arrived, followed by a handful of pensioners from Bangkok.
Twenty years ago, a monk inspired by bathtub-like impressions on the top of the mountain, said to be the footprints of the Buddha, had built about 20 stupas in the stone-topped forest, some of them golden three-story cones, others in the shape of round white bells. .
The view and energy of the place was so soothing that after 90 minutes I didn’t want to leave. But we were hungry, and when we got back, we found the pasta and noodle stalls just opening for lunch. We arranged a small plastic table on a terrace to look at the stupas high in the sky.
Enchanting a perfectly prepared papaya salad, we doubted there was a better place for lunch in Thailand.
Patrick Scott writes frequently for Travel. Follow him on Instagram: @patrickrobertscott
