MAE FAH LUANG ROYAL GARDEN

VIDEO DESCRIPTION

 

 

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).