Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
SOUTHERN CHIANG MAI PROVINCE
To the immediate south of Chiang Mai is the Ping Valley, a fertile agricultural plain that has
also grown some noteworthy handicraft villages. Further to the southwest is Thailand's
highest peak, Doi Inthanon (2565m).
TOP OF CHAPTER
Bo Sang & San Kamphaeng
Southeast of Chiang Mai is
Bo Sang
, known throughout the country as the 'umbrella village'.
It is mainly a tourist market filled with craft shops selling painted umbrellas, fans, silver-
ware, statuary, celadon pottery and lacquerware. Vendors do demonstrations of traditional
crafts - assembling and painting paper umbrellas and making mulberry paper - though the
majority of the goods are produced in factories elsewhere. It is moderately interesting for
the craft demos but the products themselves can just as easily be found at the Chiang Mai
Night Bazaar.
In late January the
Bo Sang Umbrella Festival
(têt·sà·gahn rôm)
features a colourful umbrella
procession during the day and a night-time lantern procession. Although it sounds touristy,
this festival is actually a very Thai affair; a highlight is the many northern-Thai music en-
sembles that perform in shopfronts along Bo Sang's main street.
Further down Rte 1006 is
San Kamphaeng
, once known as a production centre for cotton,
silk and other handicrafts. There are still some small-scale factories here, but the area is
changing with the globalisation of manufacturing and the downturn in Western tourism.
Today the stores sell mainly luxury goods - silk, jewellery, leather - to tourists who are in
the mood to shop. The stores also have demonstration rooms where workers show the tradi-
tional manufacturing of textiles on hand looms, though their efforts in no way represent the
bulk of the items for sale in the showroom.
The quality and the prices aren't especially remarkable, but the stores still make enough
to hand out attractive commissions to
sŏrng·tăaou
drivers, thus ensuring a steady supply of
clients. Most stores will pay the drivers 30B to 'park', while a customer shops, and also
give them a percentage of whatever sale is made. If the customer spends big, the drivers of-
ten refer to their windfall as 'winning the lottery'. In Thailand, commissions are similar to
taking out an advertisement in local media - an accepted form of promoting one's business.
But the cost of paying commissions is often passed on to the customer, meaning that prices
