Mae Kampong village, Chiang Mai: how a mountain community works

Mae Kampong is a small settlement in the hills east of Chiang Mai, at the end of a winding road that climbs well above the plain. A tour listing for the village gives its elevation as 1,300 meters, and the FAO case study that describes the community uses nearly the same figure, 1300 m above sea-level, placing it in Tumbon Hauy Kaew of Mae Orn District in Chiang Mai Province.⁶ The spelling differs between papers, but the place is the same: a clearing among forested slopes, reached from the city by a drive of 1 hour.

The name carries the landscape inside it. The FAO paper glosses mae as a river or stream, and the villagers name the place Baan Mae Kampong after it.¹ It also notes reddish yellow flowers on the bank at the village edge, known locally as the kampong flower.⁷ A private day listing for the village repeats the idea in its own way, describing a hidden village by a creek and yellow flowers that gave it the name. You can read the name as a map note: water first, then a flower on its bank.

So what is Mae Kampong village today? It is a working mountain community that doubles as an ecotourism village. Farmers still grow tea and coffee in the forest, while visitors come for the cool air, the stream, the waterfall, the viewpoints and a way of life that has changed slowly. Tourism profits go into a village co-operative that sustains local projects.³ Treat it as someone's neighborhood that happens to welcome guests, and the rest of this guide will make more sense.

Mae Kampong village history, in its modern chapter, starts with coffee. In the 1980s the village began growing coffee for the Royal Project,¹⁰ part of a national effort that TAT says the late King Bhumibol started in 1969 to tackle poverty and opium growing in the northern Golden Triangle.²⁹ The Royal Projects promoted alternative crops and reforestation, and that gave farmers a new source of income.³⁰ A mountain village with sparse forest and cool weather fitted the plan well.

Water came next. In 1983 the King paid a visit to the area and suggested that the village generate its own hydroelectric power from the nearby stream and falls.^11,4 At the time of the FAO study the sale of electricity to villages further down the mountain was the village's main source of income.³¹ That history turns the stream and the waterfall into working infrastructure as well as scenery, so stay on the marked paths and leave any pipes and channels alone.

Tourism followed, with the village head encouraging a long-stay programme in December 2000.¹² Later the village headman proposed Mae Kampong as an eco-tourism village, taking advantage of its natural surroundings and mountain location, after the village had joined the One Tambon One Product scheme.³² That order of events, coffee first, then power, then guests, is the history worth carrying with you into the lanes.