Tha Phae Gate

Of the five gates in Chiang Mai’s old city walls, Tha Phae is the one everyone knows. It faces east towards the Ping River, and Tha Phae Road, which runs out from it, was for centuries the main route to the river landings and the trading quarter beyond; the name refers to the raft landing on the river. A gate first stood here when King Mengrai founded the city in 1296, and it was originally named Chiang Ruak Gate after a nearby village.

What you see today is a reconstruction. The walls and gates were pulled down and rebuilt several times, and the present red-brick gate, with short stretches of wall on either side and heavy wooden doors, was rebuilt by the city and the Fine Arts Department in the mid-1980s, working from old records and photographs. In 2023 archaeologists announced the rediscovery of an old Lanna-script inscription that had gone missing from the gate during that restoration.

The open square in front of the gate, with the moat behind it, is the city’s main meeting point, busy with pigeons, buskers and photographers most of the day. It is also the easiest place to get your bearings: the Old City temples lie through the gate to the west, while the Night Bazaar and Warorot Market are a short walk east towards the river.

On Sunday afternoons Ratchadamnoen Road, which runs west from the gate through the heart of the Old City, closes to traffic for the Sunday Walking Street, a long market of handicrafts, clothes and northern snacks that starts at the gate and runs as far as Wat Phra Singh. Come early in the evening, before the crowds pack the street.

The square is the focus of the city’s festival calendar too. It is one of the centres of the Songkran water fights in April, the floral parade of the Chiang Mai Flower Festival passes by in February, and during Yi Peng and Loy Krathong in November the gate is hung with lanterns and lit up for processions.

A few minutes’ walk east along Tha Phae Road are two attractive temples, Wat Mahawan with its Burmese-style viharn and Wat Bupparam, both easy to take in on a stroll from the gate towards the river.

The gate stands in the middle of the east side of the Old City moat, where Tha Phae Road meets Moon Muang Road and Ratchadamnoen Road. It is a short walk from most Old City guesthouses and from the Night Bazaar, and every songthaew, tuk-tuk and Grab driver knows it as a drop-off point.