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Wat Ket Community,
Melting Pot of Cultures

The Ping River has run though Chiang Mai for hundres of years. It is the river that brings prosperity to the residents, fertility to the soil, and it's also connected people from many cultures since it was the best channel of trading in the past. Baan Ta means ‘the village situated near the pier'. In Chiang Mai, at the time when people traded by boat, Baan Ta Wat Ket was the center of trading, the scorpion tail boats carrying products from Bangkok loading all their goods here.

Wherever shops and businesses flourish, there you'll find the Chinese - and so it is at Baan Ta Wat Ket. Of course, going back a bit, as well as the Chinese, there were also Americans missionaries and the British who came here for timber trading (Borneo and Bombay), as well as the French who had mainly a political agenda, Indian migrants from the Punjab, Chinese Muslims from Yunnan, and Khamu labourers from Laos (associated with the log trade). This is reflected in the architecture of this quarter of Chiang Mai, where we can find Sikh temples, Muslim mosques, Christian churches and French colonial-style buildings, all of them blending together as harmoniously as the people. Nevertheless, the majority religion here is, as you might imagine, Buddhist, and for these residents the center of the community is Wat Ket or Ketkaram temple. It was founded by Praya Sam Fang Kaen (1402-1441). And according to the traditional belief, if people born in the Year of the Dog come here to pay their respects at the Julamanee Chedi, they will be blessed with good luck.

Strolling around Wat Ket district is a must for all shopoholics, since the side of the Charonraj Road is lined with retail outlets with extraordinary home decor and accessories with unique design abundantly on offer. Art lovers too can find many galleries displaying masterpieces by South East Asia artists - just turn the page to find out who they are and see samples of their work.