Five Temples, Twenty-One Kilometres
The temples most visitors miss because they never leave the old city — a tunnel monastery, a royal cemetery and a seven-spired chedi, all within a short ride of the moat.
Everyone does the four temples inside the walls, and they are worth doing. But the walls enclose one square kilometre, and the temples that tell you what Lanna Buddhism actually looks like are mostly outside them — spread along Suthep Road and the Superhighway, a few minutes apart, and almost empty by comparison.
Ride this one in the morning. Wat Umong is at its best before the heat, and the Khruba Sri Wichai monument sits at the foot of the mountain road, which makes this half day a natural warm-up for the Doi Suthep climb the next morning.
The route
Stop by stop, with the drive between each.
- 1
Wat Chet Lin
A small temple beside a lotus pond just inside the southern moat, with a bamboo bridge across the water. It sits a few minutes from the Sunday Walking Street and almost nobody stops.
Also called Wat Nong Charin, and thought to have been built before 1517. *Lin* is northern Thai for a water channel and *jet lin* means seven of them. Quiet, with a pond and a teak bridge across it.
Tourism Directory →Ministry of Tourism & Sports · Ministry of Tourism & Sports, Thailand 4 min · 2 km - 2
Wat Suan Dok
The "flower garden temple", built in the fourteenth century on a Lanna king's pleasure garden. The field of whitewashed royal mausoleums with the mountain behind them is the photograph; the enormous Sri Lankan–style chedi behind it is the reason the place exists. Monk chat runs here in the late afternoon.
The flower garden temple, also called Wat Buppharam: built more than 600 years ago in what had been a royal garden, to house a relic of the Buddha. The white chedis in the western yard hold the ashes of Chiang Mai's ruling family.
Tourism Directory →Ministry of Tourism & Sports · Ministry of Tourism & Sports, Thailand 12 min · 4 km - 3
Wat Umong
A forest monastery from the 1290s built around a set of brick tunnels, dim and cool, with Buddha images set into the alcoves. Above them sits a huge overgrown chedi; around them, woods, a lake full of fish and turtles, and proverbs nailed to the trees. Open from four in the morning, which tells you what it is for.
A forest temple of some 700 years west of the city, built with brick tunnels running under a mound. Sayings are hung from the trees along the paths, and there is a pond with fish and pigeons at the far end.
Tourism Directory →Ministry of Tourism & Sports · Ministry of Tourism & Sports, Thailand 10 min · 3 km - 4
Khruba Sri Wichai Monument
At the very bottom of the road up Doi Suthep. Khruba Sri Wichai organised the volunteer labour that built that road in 1935, and northern Thais still stop to make an offering before driving up it. Open around the clock.
The monk who got the road up Doi Suthep built. In 1934 he organised volunteers from across the north to cut it by hand in five months; the monument stands at the bottom of that road, and people stop to pay respects before driving up.
Tourism Directory →Ministry of Tourism & Sports · Ministry of Tourism & Sports, Thailand 14 min · 5 km - 5
Wat Jet Yot
Seven spires on one chedi, copied from the Mahabodhi temple at Bodh Gaya in 1455 and unlike anything else in the city. The stucco figures around the base are worn almost smooth. Quiet, shaded, and mostly locals.
Seven spires on a single stupa, copied from the temple at Bodh Gaya where the Buddha reached enlightenment. It is the temple people born in the year of the snake come to.
Tourism Directory →Ministry of Tourism & Sports · Ministry of Tourism & Sports, Thailand 8 min · 4 km
Best time to go
Year-round, and the best of the wet-season options because every stop is minutes from shelter. November to February is most comfortable. Avoid the middle of the day from March to May; there is very little shade between stops.
Before you set off
Shoulders and knees covered at all five, and shoes off before entering any viharn. Wat Umong's tunnels are genuinely dark and the floor is uneven — go slowly. Parking at Wat Suan Dok is on the street and fills by mid-morning. Never sit with the soles of your feet pointing at a Buddha image, and never climb on a chedi for a photograph.
Places on this route were suggested by Wongnai — temples to visit in Chiang Mai. Distances and drive times are our own, measured stop by stop.
