Tuesday 22nd November 2022
Today we went to the station nice and early in the hope of getting a ticket for the 8.50am train to Lampang. We usually buy train tickets in advance but had been to the station a couple of days earlier (as we couldn’t work out how to buy tickets online), only to be told that they go on sale just 2 hours before the train departs. The train goes all the way to Bangkok, and it’s only the long distance tickets that can be purchased in advance. Fortunately there were still tickets available (we were slightly concerned we’d end up having to wait for an afternoon train)
Chiang Mai station is beautiful and there’s plenty of seating available in the waiting area so we had a comfortable wait for the train.
The train pulled up at the station about 20 minutes early, and everyone boarded. Despite this, it ended up departing about 10 minutes late, which is apparently not that uncommon in Thailand.
We were in a second class seated air conditioned carriage, and the seats were very comfortable with plenty of leg room. At every station, various street vendors would get on the train, and walk down the carriage selling food or drinks.
We arrived in Lampang around lunch time, got a Grab to our hotel to check-in and drop our bags, and then walked into town. We were staying at the SR residence, which was good value (cheap price, large and comfortable room, and close to the centre of town).
Lampang is famous for its horse and carriage rides, and on the way into town a whole procession of them passed by us.
I really liked the look and feel of Lampang. The streets are very picturesque and lined by old and interesting looking buildings. It’s a shame we won’t experience it during the weekend, when the night market is open.
We went to หงวนชุน for lunch, which felt very like a local place. No English menus or foreign looking customers. We used google translate on the menu, and were then very surprised to find one of the waiters spoke a bit of English. We ordered chicken Khao Soi (a local Northern Thai dish, with a curry soup base and crispy noodles) and pork noodles. The food was excellent, with the Khao Soi definitely a cut above the ones we tried in Chiang Mai.
After lunch we continued walking to the Lampang Museum. It’s in a bright yellow building, and the building was much larger than I was expecting.
The museum is free to enter, and was very impressive. If you’re ever in Lampang, I’d definitely recommend visiting. It’s got a lot of interactive multimedia displays so would also be a good museum to bring kids to.
Most of the exhibits tell the story of the history of Lampang, and are very well done. It was extremely interesting and a good way to spend a couple of hours.
Just by the museum is the place where all the horse and carriage rides begin. It’s 400 baht (about £10) for an hour long city ride, which includes visits to a few temples and historic sights, so we decided to give it a go.
Our first temple stop was Wat Pratu Pong, a small Buddhist temple with traditional Lanna architecture.
We then got back in the carriage, and continued on to The Louis Leonowens House, an old wooden house that used to be the home of Louis Leonowens. He was a British guy who founded a Thai trading company, and was the basis of a major character in the 1944 novel Anna and the King of Siam (which the musical The King and I was adapted from).
You can enter the house and look around and there are some informational boards in both Thai and English with a little background on the history. It doesn’t take that long to see, but is quite interesting and worth a quick visit.
Our next stop on the tour was another temple, Wat Kaew Don Tao Suchadaram. It’s the principal Buddhist temple in Lampang and is beautiful. Apparently it used to house the Emerald Buddha, which is now in the Grand Palace in Bangkok.
We then rode past Chao Ya Suta Stupa, some ancient ruins of an old temple, and stopped briefly to take a photo.
This was the last sight of the tour, and we rode back to the start point. We discovered another temple with some brightly coloured dragons just around the corner. We couldn’t go inside, but I really liked the dragons adorning the entrance.
We continued walking around the centre of Lampang, stopping at ร้าน รักษ์บัวลอย to try some Bua Loy, a traditional dessert. It’s a coconut soup with some rice flour dumplings, candied pumpkin and beetroot, topped with a scoop of coconut ice cream. I wasn’t too convinced by the vegetables but the rest of it was lovely, not at all too sweet (which we often found to the the case in Vietnam).
We wanted to go to the Lampang Arts Center but when we got there it was closed (despite google saying it was open). I think it might only open on weekends, it seems a few places here just open at the weekend. It wasn’t a completely wasted trip though, as the road that the museum is on is lovely to walk along and has some beautiful old buildings that are worth seeing.
We soon reached the river, and spotted a restaurant (ป้าแข อร่อยทุกบาท) that was extremely busy despite it being only 5pm. We decided to stop for a snack as we noticed they do crispy pork. The menu is completely in Thai though, so it took us a while to figure out which was crispy pork so we could point to it! It was worth the effort though, as the pork was great – very crispy and crunchy but not too fatty or greasy.
By this time the sun was starting to set, and the orange suspension bridge looked beautiful.
The road opposite was lit up by a load of hanging lanterns and lights, and also looked very pretty.
We walked down it, and came across the Chiang Rai temple. It’s a big of a confusing name (as obviously it’s in Lampang), but apparently the guy who constructed it was born in Chiang Rai and so named the temple in honour of his birth town.
We arrived just before they turned on the colourful outdoor lights for the night. It’s a good time of day to visit. as it looks beautiful lit up at night.
We went into the building next to the main temple, which was extravagantly decorated inside – so ornate and beautiful.
We then went into the main white temple, which was equally impressive. The interior of the main temple was also adorned with paintings on each of the walls.
We carried on down the road and did a bit of sunglasses shopping. Pete needed a new pair as the coating on the lenses of his Polaroid sunglasses had started to peel off (despite them being less than a year old and relatively expensive!) Hopefully the Thai ones last longer! The sunglasses shop was right by the clock tower, which looked lovely lit up at night.
We continued walking towards our hotel, and then took the lazy option of ordering a takeaway via Grab. One of the top rated places was a pizza restaurant, and we just couldn’t resist. We ordered one to share between us, and we weren’t disappointed – it was actually very good pizza!
After eating. we watched a couple of episodes of Manifest on Netflix before going to bed.
Emma and Pete’s Asian Adventure 