ASIA - THAILAND: LAMPANG - TEMPLES AND BUGGIES
by Robert Tilley



The three-wheeled, two-stroke tuk-tuks which pollute the streets of Bangkok are Thailand’s most famous – and deservedly infamous – public transport vehicles. Yet, travel 600 kilometres north to the charming city of Lampang, and you’ll ride around in a much more appealing and cleaner mode of transport – a horse-drawn carriage.

Lampang is the only city in Thailand to use the horse and carriage officially as a taxi. There are 75 of them, and although they have become a major tourist attraction local people still use them to move nimbly through the crowded city streets.

The tourist image is fueled by the owners and drivers themselves, who paint the elegant carriages and simple buggies in typically Thai splashes of colour and festoon them with flowers and garlands. The drivers dress Western style, in Stetsons and ten-gallon hats, jeans and cowboy boots.

The first carriages were brought to Lampang by a more conventional means of transport – the railway. The first train into Lampang’s newly opened railway station in 1916 carried a small fleet of British-built carriages and locally-bred horses to pull them.

The horses are thought to have originated from Chinese stock, brought to Thailand more than a century ago because of their ability to survive in difficult mountain terrain. They’re compact, nimble steeds, well able to hold their own in heavy city traffic.

When they’re on the move the carriages are usually full of passengers, so it’s difficult to flag one down. But there are "stands" in several locations.

This is Thailand, where bartering is a way of life, so don’t be shy about trying to strike a hard deal with the driver. If it’s a quiet day he’ll probably accept 100 Baht for a 15-minute drive around town. But on market days and at weekends expect to pay at least double.

The alternative is to wave down a taxi-bus, which will get you to any destination in town for no more than 40 Baht. But that’s a relatively large price to pay for the loss of a romantic ride in a festooned horse-drawn carriage.

Even though Lampang’s major tourist attractions are all within walking distance of the city centre, it’s usually too hot – even in the so-called "cold season" (November-February) – to walk very far around town. Anyway, a horse and carriage offer a uniquely stylish way of rolling up at any of the city’s several spectacular temples (or "wats").

Chief of these is the 17th century Wat Phra Kaeo Don Tao, beautifully located on the Wang river, a sluggish mountain-fed waterway which sweeps sinuously through the city. The ornate architecture and rich ornamentation of the temple complex is basically Burmese, a reminder that Lampang was once the colonial property of its western neighbour.

A further reminder of the temple’s colourful history is provided by a monumental statue of an elephant, a reference to an incident which has made the site something of a national shrine. Thailand’s most revered object, the emerald Buddha enshrined in the royal palace grounds in Bangkok, spent more than 30 years in Lampang in the 15th century during the long journey to the capital from Chiang Rai – its 1,000 kilometre trek southwards interrupted when the elephant carrying the statuette staged a sit-down strike.

Elephants have always played a big role in the life of Lampang, for centuries a centre of the logging trade. At the close of the 19th century 4,000 elephants grazed within the city – one for every four inhabitants.

Restrictions on logging took their toll, and scores of scrawny elephants and their impoverished mahouts now wander the streets of Bangkok begging for money and food. The luckiest elephants have found refuge at Lampang’s world-famous retraining centre, where they entertain tourists with demonstrations of their logging skills.

Some of the cleverest have graduated beyond trundling logs around to become pupils of the centre’s painting and music schools, and their artistic work is proving a surprising source of income for the centre.

Paintings executed by brush-wielding trunks of the elephantine Van Goghs have fetched thousands of dollars in auctions in New York and London. And a CD of "music" produced by a combo of jumbo wind-instrument wizards and thumping percussionists is selling well.

Photo courtesy Singapore Tourism Board
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