Public Transport in Lamphun

There are many different ways to travel to Lamphun.

• Book a plane ticket.

Visitors can fly from Bangkok to Chiang Mai and then take a Chiang Mai-Lamphun bus that leaves Chiang Mai’s Chang Phueak Bus Station every 15 minutes. Traveling time from Chiang Mai to Lamphun is 45 minutes. Plane may be the most expensive way, but surely fast and convenient. It takes only about 1 hour if you start from Bangkok.

• Drive your own car.

If you’re in perfect health and adventurous, you probably want to drive your own car to get to Lamphun. The road is long and rough on some parts, but is you love it, it will be fun.

To drive to Lamphun, you may start from the Highway No.1. Keep going and switch to the Highway No.32 instead. At the point, you must pass Ayutthaya and Ang Tong, before you reach Nakhon Sawan and switch back to the Highway No.1. Then you will pass Kamphaengphet, Tak, and Lampang. Finally, you should be on the Highway No.11 until you reach Lamphun.

• Get a train ticket.

The train station is located 2 km north of town and motorbike taxies and rickshaws are always available to take you to your hotel or elsewhere in town.  A train is good if you want to travel leisurely and have a sightseeing at the same time.

• A tour bus is also a choice.

The bus station is located just south of the old city and can be reached on foot. There are some buses that can take you from Bangkok to Lamphun. The travel hour is long. Therefore, if you can get exhausted easily, this method is not your suggestion.

If you want something different, there are also trucks, and, of course, buses. Trucks can be found most anywhere, same as tricycles. For buses, you can get some at Lamphun Bus Station, which is in Muang County. By getting a bus, you can travel from county to county, and from Lamphun to nearby provinces.

Lamphun’s bus station is typical of a provincial town terminal, and has covered areas, comfortable seating, snack and drink stalls and a ticket office. For transport to town there are songthaew buses as well as motorbike taxis, but tuk-tuks aren’t available here. The town, set along the banks of the slow-moving Ping River, is small enough to explore on foot.

• Getting Around

Now, after you arrive at Lamphun, what will you do next? If you travel there by your own car, there won’t be problems, because you can just drive from A to B. But if it’s your first time in the province and you don’t have a car, now what? How can you travel from one place to another?

Don’t worry, there, in Lamphun, there are many public vehicle for you to choose. The most popular one is the tricycle. Tricycle is rare nowadays. But you can still find lots of them in Lamphun, especially in front of Haripunchai National Museum or Nhong Dok Market.
As in most rural Thai provinces there are typically songtaews that follow established routes around the provincial capital and local busses and songtaews for trips between towns within the province. The price starts normally from 20 Baht to 200 Baht (for a lump-sum payment).

Blue songthaews connect outlying districts as well as neighbouring province such as Lampang and Chiang Mai, and leave from various point around town as well as the central bus station. They’re very slow so pointless for say Chiang Mai (20 baht if you do want to do it) but they are your only means of getting to Amphoe Li (Mae Ping National Park) or the scenic Mae Tha district.

Songtaews, motorbike taxis, and samlors (three wheeled pedal powered cabs) are usually available for private charter as well.