Ngao is a small district located in Lampang province in Northern Thailand. I’ve visited Ngao a few times when I stayed in Northern Thailand. You can turn into this small little town if you are travelling from Central towards the direction of Chiang Rai and Mae Sai.
Basically Ngao is a very small amphor with not many main roads but you can find a majority of the shops selling almost everything you need for daily living. There is a section in Ngao where a wooden bridge, build around world war time still stands:
I was told that there are only two of such bridges in Thailand. One is the Bridge of River Kwai in Kanchanapuri and the bridge known as the Yong bridge is the other one.
On a quiet sunny mid day, a local riding on a motorbike casually cross the wooden bridge. Before that, there were a few kids who visited a nearby shop and use the bridge to get back to their home. I also saw two tourists exploring the town on their backpacks.
The town is quiet and rustic and you just cover most of the main roads in a short time. A Thai friend whom I got to know was from Ngao. She pursued her early education in Chiang Mai and Bangkok and eventually spent about 1.5 years in United States. Hence she is able to converse in English relatively fluently.
However after years of being away from home, she came back to her hometown to help her parents in their business. She enjoys the quiet life in this peaceful town.
Above are older shophouses. You could see a man climbing on the left as he seemed to be doing renovation for the shophouse.
What I find amazing is that I often see cute little pet dogs being kept at the business premises like the ones below where the pet dog is relaxing in front of a hardware shop.
Towns like Ngao, located in the Northern region and away from the large cities are clean and not polluted. In this town, people are on friendly terms and seemed to know each other. Over the years, despite growing up in a city, I have now preferred to live in a small town like this away from the buzz and pollution of the large city.
If you wish to go for shopping, well, you can either head on to Lampang or the Central Plaza and Makro along the main road leading to Phayao town, about 20 minutes’ drive away from Ngao.
