Chao Luang Kham Daeng's mountainTham Chiang Dao ถ้ำเชียงดาว

Chao Luang Kham Daeng's mountain

Chao Luang Kham Daeng, who rode in and did not come out

Where: 72 km north on Highway 107, then 5 km west · 19.39413, 98.92792 from OpenStreetMap
Open: 08:00–17:00
Cost: 40 ฿ entry, as posted 2026; lamp guide 200–300 ฿ for the unlit passages
Who is dead: Chao Luang Kham Daeng, who rode in and did not come out
On: The second day north

Doi Luang Chiang Dao is the third-highest mountain in the country and the story is that it is hollow, with a city inside it. The lord Kham Daeng went in after a golden deer and stayed, and is the guardian spirit of the whole north from in there.

Five caves run back into the limestone. Two are lit and walkable. The rest need a woman with a pressure lamp, hired at the mouth, and she is the reason to go.

A full day with a driver, and the only stop on this route outside the valley.

What is said to be there

The mountain is held to be hollow, with a city inside it. Chao Luang Kham Daeng rode in after a golden deer and did not come out, and from in there he is the guardian spirit of the whole north — a เสื้อเมือง on a scale above any town's. Five caves run back into the limestone and two of them are lit. The woman with the pressure lamp who takes you into the other three is not telling you a ghost story. She is telling you whose house you are in.

The kind of dead this kind of place holds, in northern reckoning

Making merit here

The shrine at the cave mouth is Kham Daeng's. A khan tang, before you go in rather than after.

Khan tang — the tray for a spirit ขันตั้ง — Paired flowers and candles on a tray, set down in front of a spirit or a teacher. 30–150 ฿ ready-made at the shrine. Less if you assemble it.
Lighting a pang pratip ผางประทีป — A small clay saucer with a wick, lit at the base of a chedi. 5–20 ฿ each.
Pouring the water กรวดน้ำ — Pour a thin stream of water while the chanting runs, and say who it is for. Nothing.

Tham Chiang Dao — Andrea Schaffer from Sydney, Australia · CC BY 2.0 · Commons

Yours would be better

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Sources for this stop

What	Who published it	Note
ผี ไม่ได้มีแค่สยองขวัญ เมื่อ 'ผีล้านนา' คือการปกปักรักษา	Lanner	the Lanna split between ผีดี and ผีร้าย, and what เสื้อบ้าน เสื้อเมือง are
คำเรียกผีและความเชื่อเรื่องผีในภาษาไทยถิ่นเหนือ	Veridian E-Journal, Silpakorn University	the northern names for the dead, collected and classified