Kanchanaphisek Park is a park in Chiang Mai along a remnant of the outer city wall. The park is a good model of what a reclaimed waterway can look like.
Chiang Mai has numerous waterways that run from the mountain (Doi Suthep) to the Ping River. Unfortunately, most of these have been encroached by urbanisation. These streams have buildings built next to them, and in some cases built over. There are creeks and streams that I know of that don’t appear on Google Maps.
[One of the hidden waterways of Chiang Mai.]
Kanchanaphisek Park offers a glimpse of what these waterways could look like if encroaching buildings are cleared and replaced with trees and walkways.
Kanchanaphisek Park
Kanchanaphisek Park is opposite Buak Hard Public Park in the Southwest corner of the old city. Both of these parks stand out on Google Maps as a rare bit of green in central Chiang Mai
[View map of Kanchanaphisek Park.]
Chiang Mai is best known for its moat and old city walls, but there was an outer city wall that ran south and east of the city. This wall ran along a stream and canal system, and the wall mainly comprised of compacted earth.
This map shows the outer wall in relation to the moated old city area.
[Map source.]
Kanchanaphisek Park was built to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the King’s ascension to the throne in the 1990s. (I’m looking for photos of this area before it became a park, so contact me if you know.)
[Kanchanaphisek Park entrance.]
The park follows the path of a stream that flows to the south.
[Kanchanaphisek Park walkway.]
The embankment to the left is the remnant of the outer wall.
[Outer wall remnant at Kanchanaphisek Park.]
The park includes a playground (a rare site in the city).
[Kanchanaphisek Park playground.]
There is an ornamental bridge in the park.
[Kanchanaphisek Park bridge.]
There is even a little waterfall (though don’t cancel your trip to the Mae Pan waterfall).
[An urban waterwall in Kanchanaphisek Park.]
It’s great having a relatively long stretch of park to walk around, but the water quality is a big letdown of the park.
[Grey water in Kanchanaphisek Park.]
Cleaning the waterways of Chiang Mai (and Thailand)
Reclaiming land around the waterways is half the battle. The other half is preventing polluted water from entering the waterway.
[Polluted water from the upstream entrance of Kanchanaphisek Park.]
While they have been able to reclaim the land around the waterway, there is no way to fix the water passing through the park.
[You shouldn’t need a sign to tell you not to fish in these waters.]
At the downstream end of Kanchanaphisek Park you can see what the rest of the stream looks like. This is more typical of what most urban waterways look like in Thailand.
[Stream following the old outer wall.]
There has been progress with cleaning up the waterways of Chiang Mai. The stream that runs through Kanchanaphisek Park connects to the Mae Kha Canal, which has also been partially rehabilitated. The Mae Kha Canal area has new walkways on either side and has become a tourist attraction.
[Mae Kha Canal walkway.]
There is talk of cleaning the water of the canal so it resembles an urban waterway of Japan or South Korea. This is something I wondered about when I walked along the Todoroki Valley in Tokyo and the Cheonggyecheon Stream in Seoul. Could these urban waterways in East Asia be replicated in Southeast Asia?
For Chiang Mai, it is technically possible to have clear water running through the city. If you go to the massive Chiang Mai University campus at the base of the mountain, you can see one of the streams from the mountain before it enters the city.
[A canal near Doi Sethep at Chiang Mai University.]
Cleaning up the waterways would involve buying back land surrounding the streams. Waste water also needs to be prevented from entering the stream.
This would be a multi-decade project, but even small progress such as with Kanchanaphisek Park and Mae Kha Canal has made a notable difference.
My dream is for walkways with walking and cycling tracks that connect the mountain to the river. Maybe not in my lifetime, but future generations can enjoy this vision if the city starts a campaign to reclaim the waterways, one block at a time.
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