Ban Tawai ‘Meet the most famous village of wooden sculptures’

As you already know that Chiang Mai is a historic town. There is no wonder why there are so many ancient-style places around. Chiangmai, in the past, is one of the towns within Lanna Kingdom. Therefore you should look back on the past and feel the identity of Lanna lifestyle through all architectures and artworks in Chiang Mai. 

Beside of temples and statues, there is another important thing for you to learn about those history. It is ‘Ban Tawai’, a nice handicraft village widely known for wooden sculptures. 

Don’t ever miss your chance of going there! Grab your camera and other belongings, then just take off!

Ban Tawai is one of the most important cultural tourist attractions in Chiang Mai. Also, it is the original OTOP tourism village of Thailand. Most tourists, both Thai and foreign, never miss this, due to the long-time fame of stunning, glorious and valuable wooden-carving artworks. Those works are created by unique ideas, which has caused them to become worldwide-popular products.

After you enter Ban Tawai carving village, you will see that has been divided into many zones. Each zone consists of various shops, mostly sell wooden products like sculptures, silverwares, fabrics and potteries. You may want to buy some as souvenirs for your friends, or even as a memory-keeping item for yourself. 

The important highlight there is most houses have been decorated in Thai style. See the appearance of the roofs, the windows, the doors etc. 

For those who focus on buying some wooden sculptures, there are many beautiful wooden boxes with lovely patterns, Lord Buddha sculptures available both in full-body style and head-only style, wooden furniture in high quality, wooden elephant sculptures and many more! You have to walk around and see for yourself.

During your shopping, you will also hear Thai traditional songs through the speakers. This should stimulate your feelings to feel more like you’re going back to the past.

However, if you don’t know where to start first, because it’s, however, full of many zones. The first zone you should visit is ‘Ban Tawai 2th Handicraft Centre’ on the canal side. There you will have a chance to see gorgeous wooden products while observing the locals’ lifestyles.

This is ‘absolutely’ a good place for new-age people to go to. Why? Because we’re now in the middle of modern items. We always live with computers, smart phones, games, or some sort of thing like that. This cause us to pay less attention to valuable ancient things, especially children and teenagers. We spend our time with modern technology so much that we barely care about interesting historic stories. Therefore you should bring yourself and your childrean to Baan Tawai to, at least, see how Thai locals’ lifestyles are or see how gorgeous those wooden works are. This should maintain the traditional intelligence for your future children and grandchildren to learn about it.

On top of that, may visit the central website of Ban Tawai Community www.ban-tawai.com to see further details like product categories, hot products, featured shops etc. Or you can contact 081-8824482 also.

How to get there

Ban Tawai’s location is 90 Area 2, Ban Tawai ,Khun Kong District, Hang Dong County, Chiang Mai.

The best way to travel there is to grab a vehicle and head out of the downtown, going straight on Highway No.108 for about 15 kilometres. Then you should first find a big junction just before Hang Dong Market. After that, turn left and continue for about 3.5 kilometres before entering the commercial area of Ban Tawai.