Suan Mae Fah Luang (สวนแม่ฟ้าหลวง)
is the name of a royal park with a botanical garden situated
adjacent to Doi Tung (ดอยตุง) Royal Villa, the hilltop residence of
the former Princess Mother, the late Princess Sri Nagarindra (ศรีนครินทรา),
in Chiang Rai (เชียงราย). The park is named after the princess'
epithet Mae Fah Luang, which literally means ‘Royal Mother from the
Sky’, a nickname that was given to the former Princess Mother by the
local hill tribe people whom she often visited by helicopter, hence
literally arriving from the sky. At its centre, the park has a
bronze somewhat Vineland-style statue of some children forming a
five-level human
obelisk-like tower. The sculpture, created by the late Misiem
Yip-In-Soi (มิเซียม ยิบอินซอย), a prominent Thai painter and
sculptor (1906–1988), was named Khwaam Toh Neuang (ความต่อเนื่อง),
i.e. ‘Continuity’, by the Princess Mother. The landscaped garden
also has a rock garden and a pond with aquatic plants, and covers a
total area of 25 rai (ไร่), i.e. 4 hectares. In recent years some
attractions were added to the park, such as edifices of giant Toh (โต), a legendary animal from old Lan Na (ล้านนา) folktales
believed to have originated in myths from both Laos and Myanmar, and
depicted as a mythological deer-like lion with a with two horns or
antlers on its head, a creature often seen in Lan Na art and in
tradtional dances of northern Thailand, Laos and Myanmar. In the
royal garden, the Toh's fur is made of Spanish Moss, and whereas one
is made into a coffee shop for visitors, another one has a staircase
that leads up to a balcony-like opening in the creature's chest,
allowing to view the area from above. There is also a flower shop
selling orchids as well as a Nipplefruit plant, a species of
eggplant with the scientific name Solanum mammosum and known in Thai
as makheua cartoon (มะเขือการ์ตูน).
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