Wua Lai Road, the Silver Street.
Chiang Mai is one of the famous place to visit in Thailand. It has lovely nature, beautiful culture and also as the great craft men who create things which could represent Chiang Mai. Today we are going to tell you about “ The Silver street or the street known by the local people in Chiang Mai Wualai Road.”
Hundreds years ago, during King Kawila ( 1783 – 1816)had restored Chiang Mai after it was abandoned for 20 years and gathered people to form the Chiang Mai once again after the invasion of the Burmese. King Rama the 1st of Siam at that time had promoted him as the King of Chiang Mai Governing since then. The silver smiths ( The silver craft men had settled in the south side gate which is called” Wau lai Road or Wua lai community as present) and had produced the beautiful silver craft products to the Royal family in the palace as well as the noble people as well. The popularity of the sliver had decreased due to the new product had get into Chiang Mai also the young generation have high education and get to work in the big city instead.
The old generation is clever to apply and set the project for the young ones who interesting in learning and doing the silver craft project by started to use aluminium and silver mixing to be part of the material for the young ones to learn. They even have the idea to decorate the temple walls in their village ( Wua Lai) to show their craft work skill to the local themselves as well as to the foreigners to see how beautiful craft works are. This is how the young generation look back and become more interesting in doing this kind of craft work and keep our traditional craft design for the next generation.
In Chiang Mai , on every Saturdays, Wau Lai Street is one of the walking street in the weekend where the people and tourists could enjoy with the craft products and get them as the good quality for the souvenir home.
