Perhaps the province least known to the foreign tourist masses, mountainous northern Nan has been the victim of contesting larger powers for centuries.
There’s no mystery why foreigners were barred from Nan province for so long. From the 1960s through the 1980s, this was a stronghold of Thai communist insurgents and their Laotian and Vietnamese patrons. They filtered back and forth along the long porous border with Laos. For much of this time, the radio programs of the Communist Party of Thailand were broadcast from the hills.
Even after the last communists surrendered in the late 1980s, the undeveloped province continued to be frequented by what the Thai army called “bandits” who often blew up road construction equipment. Until the early 1990s, most of the eastern border with Laos was controlled by the Thai military and off limits to outsiders. That zone has now shrunk to a small area close to the northern border.
A Lanna State
The first Nan dynasty emerged in the mid-1300s. By the end of the 14th century, the tiny fiefdom had joined with nine other Thai-Lao states to form the first Lanna kingdom. In 1558, the town was conquered and depopulated by the Burmese. The next few hundred years were tumultuous, but in 1788 Nan allied with the new Ratanakosin (also known as Bangkok) kingdom that emerged from the ashes of Ayutthaya.
A century later, this alliance did not protect Nan from losing much of its territorial claims in what is today Laos to the French imperialists. However, Nan’s monarchs cooperated with King Chulalongkorn’s efforts to fend off French and British ambitions by creating a modern unified Thai state, so the province was allowed to retain a special status as a semi-independent principality. It kept that status until the death of the last prince in 1931. The interesting wooden mansion that now houses the national museum branch in the provincial capital was the home of the last two princes.
Wat Chang Kham’s Elephants
The allegiances and influences in the past 600 years can be detected in the art of one of Nan’s oldest temples, which displays the styles of Lanna, Sukhothai, northern Laos, the Tai Lu people and combinations thereof. Yet another branch on the Tai ethnic tree (the lowland Lao of Laos and the Shan of Burma are others), the Tai Lu immigrated here about 150 years ago. They are much more numerous in Laos and China. Their temples are small but with steep swooping roofs.
Styles of the Sukhothai period are prominent at Wat Chang Kham, which is across from the museum and located within the old city walls. The elephants, seven on each side, supporting the second tier of the square chedi are a Sukhothai motif.
Royal Descendant's Teak House
The standing Buddhas in the 15th-century viharn are also Sukhothai style and very common in Laos. The high-ceilinged wat library, now empty, was once the largest in Thailand.
Behind this wat is a large grey, two-story teak house with a veranda. Known as Tha Mahapron, it was originally built in 1866 and reconstructed in 1941. It is the home of a descendant of the last prince. By contacting the owner (0 5471 0605), visitors may be able to visit and see ancient weapons and photographs taken during King Chulalongkorn's reign. For more places to visit in Nan Town, see this article.
Visitors can get some hints of how Nan people felt about the loss of most of their kingdom to the French empire in the town’s most famous murals. These are in Wat Phumin, first constructed in 1596.
Wat Phumin Murals
The entry stair rails to the cross-shaped viharn are topped by two great nagas, or snakes. Inside, four seated gilded Buddha images, their backs to a single teak pillar, are in Sukhothai style. If the viharn’s great carved doors are fully open, make sure to peek at the scenes behind on the front wall. There are boatloads of bearded foreigners with pipes and naval caps, a great three-masted ship and even a few over-dressed white women. The copulating monkeys represent the French colonialists.
The murals throughout depict an episode from the Jataka Tales, the chronicle of Buddha’s previous incarnations and a compendium of morality tales. The scenes of Thai-like characters engaged in war, torture and general mayhem on the other walls convey one hellish life. Since the murals were painted at the turn of the century, shortly after the cession of territory to the French, historian David K. Wyatt has suggested that murals may express how Nan people viewed their long history of betrayals and abandonment. Note that the writing on these murals is in Lanna script, which resembles Burmese more than Thai.
Further reading: Wyatt, David K., Reading Thai Murals
Silkworm Books (Chiang Mai, 2004)
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