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We've compiled the best of the best in Northern Thailand - browse our top choices for the top things to see or do during your stay.
Next to Wat Phrathat Chedi Luang, the National Museum exhibits artifacts from the Lanna period, as well as some Neolithic discoveries. The museum also has a good collection of carvings and traditional handicrafts from hill tribes.
The cultures, ways of life, and crafts of the many hill tribe people that populate the Chiang Rai region are explained with extensive displays at this exemplary museum in the city center. The museum also supports its own travel service, PDA Tour, which organizes visits to hill tribe villages under the motto "We don't support human zoos!"
To get a sense of the region's art, visit the National Museum, which occupies a mansion built in 1923 for the prince who ruled Nan, Chao Suriyapong Pharittadit. The house itself is a work of art, a synthesis of overlapping red roofs, forest-green doors and shutters, and brilliant-white walls. There's a fine array of wood and bronze Buddha statues, musical instruments, ceramics, and other works of Lanna art. The revered black elephant tusk is also an attraction. The tusk, about a meter (3 feet) long, weighs 18 kg (40 pounds). It's actually dark brown in color, but that doesn't detract at all from its special role as a local good-luck charm.
Lanna history and culture are vividly chronicled at this jewel of a facility on the outskirts of Chiang Rai. The museum, in an attractive complex of historic buildings, displays several centuries' worth of local artifacts, including the throne and coronation robes of a 16th-century Lanna ruler.
The region's most significant artifacts are in Sukhothai's National Museum, and the many pieces on display at this fine facility demonstrate the gentle beauty of the Sukhothai era. One of several impressive exhibits reveals how refinements in the use of bronze enabled artisans to create the graceful walking Buddhas.
This museum goes by two different names and commemorates the hundreds of Japanese soldiers who died here during a chaotic retreat from the Allied armies in Burma. Locals took in the dejected and defeated men, and a local historian gathered the belongings they left behind: rifles, uniforms, cooking utensils, personal photographs, and documents. They provide a fascinating glimpse into a little-known chapter of World War II.
