Wat Pa Pao

Wat Pa Pao was Chiang Mai’s first temple built for the city’s Shan (Tai Yai) community, founded in 1883 at the Old City’s northeast corner, just inside the moat. Entry is free, daily 06:00-18:00.

Chao Inthawichayanon, the seventh ruler of Chiang Mai, and his Shan consort Mom Bualai founded the temple together with Shan families who had migrated from the Shan States in what’s now Myanmar to work the region’s teak logging trade and needed a place to practise their own form of Buddhist worship. The name comes from the grove of pao trees the temple was built in — “pa” means forest. Every building on the compound follows Shan and Burmese architectural convention rather than the Lanna style found at most other Old City temples: the bell-shaped chedi sits on a triple-tiered square base under a golden spire, the main assembly hall carries a seven-tiered Burmese-style pyatthat roof, and a second hall to the west, built largely of teak, has a distinctive multi-tiered zeitawun wooden roofline. It’s a rare cluster of Shan design elements inside Chiang Mai’s Old City walls.

The temple still functions as the community’s spiritual and social hub — it runs Shan-language schooling for local children and anchors the city’s most visible Shan cultural event, the annual Poy Sang Long festival each April. Over three days, boys due for novice ordination are dressed in elaborate traditional Shan costume, complete with ornate headwear, and paraded through the streets on the shoulders of relatives before the ordination ceremony itself. Wat Pa Pao is one of the temples involved in the Chiang Mai procession; outside festival season the grounds stay quiet, with monks and a handful of Shan families the only people around.

Insider Tip: The teak assembly hall west of the chedi is easy to overlook if you head straight for the golden stupa — its zeitawun roofline is one of the few examples of that Shan wooden roof style inside the Old City, and it’s usually unlocked during the day.

Dress modestly — covered shoulders and knees — and remove your shoes before entering either assembly hall. The temple sits an easy walk from Chang Phuak Gate, so it pairs naturally with a loop of the moat’s northeast corner. Wat Ku Tao, another temple with long-standing Shan community ties and its own distinctive five-sphere chedi, is a short walk away behind the municipal stadium. See Chiang Mai for the rest of the Old City’s temples.