> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://easythailandvisa.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # You Can Watch a Hand-Made Umbrella Being Made in Half an Hour From Chiang Mai - URL: https://easythailandvisa.com/thai-craft-villages-bo-sang-umbrellas-and-ban-tawai/ - Published: 2026-10-16T13:00:00.000Z - Updated: 2026-10-19T12:29:37.000Z - Description: Paper umbrellas made from tree bark, wood carvings, silk — all within half an hour of the old city. Which craft village is worth the trip and which is now a shopping strip. - Author: Somchai Jaidee - Tags: Temples & Culture The old guide to Chiang Mai, written in 1964, tells you how to find the umbrella village: turn right at the nine-kilometre post and proceed "to the village in a clump of trees", ignoring "the barking, snarling dogs", and there you will see paper umbrellas in every stage of construction. I found the clump of trees. The dogs are still there. What has changed is everything else, and not always for the worse. Last verified 8 October 2026. ## Bo Sang: paper umbrellas, and they are still made by hand **Bo Sang is about ten kilometres east of the old city, in the San Kamphaeng district,** on the road that runs out past kilometre post nine. It is a working village that sells to you, and that distinction matters more here than anywhere else on this list. The umbrellas and parasols are made the old way, and the process is visible rather than performed. **The paper is made from the bark of a tree**, pressed and dried into sheets, then stretched over a bamboo-and-wood frame and painted by hand, one motif at a time, with a brush. The ribs and spokes are made nearby. The assembly happens in front of you. That is the thing to understand: **this is not a shop with a demonstration attached.** It is a village where a craft industry survived because people were good at it, and tourists arriving is a bonus rather than the point. Practically: **there is no entry fee,** you walk in and out, shops are typically open from morning until late afternoon, and the shops are liveliest after about 2pm. The white songthaews that leave from near [Warorot](https://easythailandvisa.com/chiang-mai-night-bazaar-and-warorot-market/) Market and the flower market run straight out there — historically 15 baht, call it 20 now — and take half an hour. **If you buy, buy from the workshop, not from the gate.** The umbrellas range from cheap painted ones to genuinely expensive hand-painted work. The difference is visible and the price difference is fair. ## Ban Tawai: wood carvings, and an honest warning **Ban Tawai is about twenty minutes south of Chiang Mai, in Hang Dong, right by the airport** — which makes it an easy thing to bolt onto the end of a trip. ***Ban* means "gulls" and *tawai* means "to perch".** It has been the woodcarving village for a very long time, and the work is good: furniture, panels, sculpture, and an enormous quantity of it. And here is the honest warning. **Ban Tawai has been comprehensively turned into a shopping strip**, and the villages around it even more so. There is no entry fee, most stalls open around 10am, and if you walk in expecting the feel of a working village you will not get it. People have been marking up teak for decades and the market has priced itself accordingly. **Go if you are shopping. Skip it if you are looking for craft in the way you looked for it in Bo Sang.** Look at the furniture, ask who made it, and be honest with yourself about whether you want a dining table or a photo. **They are all on one road.** Route 106, east of the city, has been a handicraft strip for so long that the whole corridor is shops: parasols, lacquerware, silk, silver, jewellery, woodcarving, celadon. **Bo Sang sits inside that strip and San Kamphaeng is the other end of it,** and between them are silk and cotton weaving workshops and the San Kamphaeng hot springs. Plan one direction, one trip, and do not try to do all of it in a morning. ## How to do this properly in a day **Go east in the morning, when the workshops are working.** Take the [songthaew](https://easythailandvisa.com/songthaew-local-transport-thailand/) from Warorot out to Bo Sang first — the production is happening in the morning and that is the interesting time — then work your way back along the road, ending at San Kamphaeng for the [silk](https://easythailandvisa.com/thai-silk-and-textiles-what-to-buy/) and the hot springs if it is the right kind of day. **Do not take the standard "umbrella village and wood carving village" tour.** They are running on a tight loop, the stops are timed, and you will be shown three shops and given none of the context. **Learn one word: *ban*.** It means village, and once you can see it, you can see how many of these places are named and why they exist. Bo Sang is a village of umbrella makers. Ban Tawai is a village of wood carvers. That is not a tourist brand, it is the actual structure of the economy. **Buy one thing and carry it.** A hand-painted umbrella costs less than a flight home in most cases and you will still have it in ten years. A teak dining table costs more than the flight home, in more than one currency, and you will have spent the holiday discussing freight. ## The verdict **Bo Sang is the one worth the songthaew.** It is a real craft in a real village, the making is watchable rather than staged, and the prices are set by the people making the things. **Ban Tawai is a competent afternoon if you want to buy furniture** and is otherwise the most commercial place I have been in this province. Go knowing which one you are. And **get on the white songthaew at Warorot with a bag and no plan**, and go east. That is the Chiang Mai I would rather show somebody than another temple. **More on this** - [Songkran in Chiang Mai, From Someone Who Has Lived Through](https://easythailandvisa.com/songkran-chiang-mai/) - [Thonburi Is the Half of Bangkok That Has Not Been Sold Yet](https://easythailandvisa.com/thonburi-bangkok-the-city-on-the-other-bank/) - [Ayutthaya Is Better Than Bangkok's Temples, and It Is a Day](https://easythailandvisa.com/ayutthaya-day-trip-from-bangkok/) - [The Best Museum in Bangkok Costs 200 Baht and Only Ten](https://easythailandvisa.com/bangkok-museums-jim-thompson-house-and-museum-siam/)