It's fascinating to watch a city evolve, or to unravel, as the case may be during Covid. Extended tourist closures and travel bans have GUTTED the 700 Old City of Chiang Mai. It is NO exaggeration to say that right now, August 2021, after almost 18 months of closed borders and virtually no in-bound international travel, the Old City of Chiang Mai is 70% boarded up, abandoned and awaiting a makeover and a Renaissance. It's so bad that even the 7-11s have gone out of business, and being there is just downright depressing. And yes, if you saw only that part of Thailand and drew conclusions that all is lost and broken in terms of travel here, you'd be VERY WRONG.
There is a strange decentralization happening around Chiang Mai city, as the remaining businesses prepare for and anticipate the arrival of the next wave, the "next normal" for tourism, anticipated November-December 2021. It will definitely be about higher end Asian tourism, with travelers from places like China, Korea, Japan, Taiwan & Hong Kong, and Singapore. The "next normal" of Asian tourism will be based on complete attractions, comfort, selfies, ease of access (ie no hiking boots required) and is a big step away from the budget, back-packer travel of the last decades.
Since my business, Pure Thai Natural Co Ltd supplies organic insect repellent product to resorts & tourist sites, I'm making it my business to investigate and experience some of these new locations and tourism offerings, as they have their "soft openings" to practice and consolidate. Working out what this new business landscape looks like.
And so we found ourselves at Terracotta Garden in Lamphun one gorgeous rainy season Saturday morning, for reconnaissance. Built and developed by the same owners as the once-hugely-popular-but-now-deserted The Faces at the Old City Chiang Mai Gate, terracotta theming is their strong game. After all, Terracotta Garden is literally built on the original, massive, family-owned brickworks site.
The courtyards, entrances and statuary are reminiscent of Angkor Wat in Cambodia or what My Son in Central Vietnam might have looked like. And a selfie lover's delight.
Super comfortable, nice coffee (sadly not organic) and a predictable European cake, bland Thai-fusion menu. The service we excellent and comfortably bilingual. Definitely not a budget menu, but not crazy expensive either.
This is definitely a destination cafe with no alternative for miles around, so if you made the effort, you paid and stayed. At 28km from Tapae Gate in Central Chiang Mai wandering through semi-rural Pa Daed, you'd need a driver or a rental car, since there is NO public transport option. That said, it's a GORGEOUS drive from the 121 Highway along the Ping River, and totally worth seeing the older, semi-rural Chiang Mai that we know and love.
To be honest, the sanitized tourist coffee bored me. On the plus side, it will be a good mosquito repellent outlet in future, we think, and it's most likely to have a gift shop in future too.
The best part for us, was wandering around the work in progress outside the immediate, completed café area.
It is quite obvious that in 5 years, this will be a complete tourist village, complete with accommodation, local cycling tours and the like.
The center of the brickworks site is an old Chedi which appears to have been built by the family. You can wander over a rickety bamboo bridge and it feels like you're on an old historic site.
Lovely for a long walk around the moat which encircles the chedi, and I'm sure that by the time the rains are over and the mud dries, it will be a GORGEOUS spot to rent a bicycle and go for a pleasant cycle in the surrounding Thai villages.
It IS very much a work in progress....
Pondering this whole new evolution of travel in this part of our Asian world. Clearly it's not entirely to my personal taste - she who schlepped for hours through the ruins of the original My Son site in Vietnam and would have been HORRIFIED to find a sanitized café on the UNESCO site. But I'm appreciating that people differ and LOTS of travelers are prepared to waive a little authenticity for a more comfortable experience and some great selfies, and don't mind paying for that.
I hope Terracotta Garden thrives and helps to invigorate the Thai villages around it and enable at least a few travelers to see some of the authentic Northern Thai culture that remains.
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