Doi Tung

Doi Tung is a mountain in Chiang Rai province in northern Thailand that hosts a royal villa and the well-known Mae Fah Luang botanical garden. The site combines landscaped gardens, a former royal residence and surrounding reforested slopes.

The gardens display a wide range of temperate-climate and ornamental plants and are laid out on terraced slopes with paved paths and viewpoints. The broader Doi Tung area also includes agricultural projects, craft workshops and community enterprises developed to support local livelihoods.

In the late 20th century the area became the focus of a royal development project aimed at environmental restoration and alternative livelihoods for hill communities, replacing opium cultivation with coffee, fruit and handicraft production. The gardens and villa were part of that broader programme.

Doi Tung is located in northern Chiang Rai province near Thailand’s border with Myanmar, accessible by road from towns in Chiang Rai province.

• Main attractions: the mountain-top garden and royal villa are the main visitor attractions and are open to the public seasonally

What to See#

• Doi Tung Royal Villa and Mae Fah Luang Garden: a hillside royal residence and public garden created by the Thai royal project, set within restored forests and ornamental plantings
• Doi Tung Development Project: development and livelihood initiatives aimed at replacing opium cultivation with sustainable agriculture and handicrafts

Known to locals as “Switzerland in Thailand,” Doi Tung (“Flag Mountain”) rises in Chiang Rai Province in the far north of the kingdom, not far from Chiang Rai city and the Thai-Burmese border town of Mae Sai.

This gorgeous mountain-top destination takes in forests and nearby Akha, Lahu and Shan tribal villages, and makes a magnificent trip through the mountains combined with a visit to Mae Sai and Tachileik, across the border in Myanmar. The most historic sight in the region is the thousand-year-old Wat Phra That Doi Tung, a significant place of pilgrimage; an oversized flag has flown from the time its twin chedis were built, giving the mountain its name. A few kilometres away, the Mae Fah Luang Arboretum atop Doi Chang Moob is a horticulturalist’s dream of astounding variety.

The arboretum is part of the Doi Tung Development Project, initiated by Her Royal Highness the Princess Mother, who passed away in 1995. Some kilometres south, the Doi Tung Royal Villa has been kept exactly as it was when she stayed here, a symbol of her lifelong efforts to improve the wellbeing of her subjects. Set just below the villa, the beautifully landscaped Mae Fah Luang Garden brims with flowering and ornamental plants, making it one of the country’s most colourful sites. Each year tens of thousands of visitors learn here about the tireless work of Princess Srinagarindra, now catalogued in the Hall of Inspiration on the same site.

Doi Tung is about 60-70 km east of Chiang Rai city. Visitors commonly drive or join day tours; public buses and minivans run to Mae Sai and surrounding towns, with local transport to Doi Tung.

• Visit the Mae Fah Luang Garden early in the morning for cooler light and fewer visitors.
• Allow time to tour the Royal Villa and the ethnobotanical exhibits on the Doi Tung Development Project.
• Combine the mountain visit with nearby hill-tribe markets for handicrafts tied to the royal project.