Wat Phra That Doi Suthep.

The chedi you see now is the result of many enlargements. Around 1538, King Mueang Ket Klao had the monk Phra Maha Yanamongkhonphot from Lamphun enlarge and raise the chedi and crown it with a golden lotus; it was later clad in gilded copper plates. The same monk built the east and west viharns and the cloister around the relic, and in 1547 added the naga staircases on both sides so people could climb up to worship more easily.

The naga staircase built by Phra Maha Yanamongkhonphot in 1547 · Photo: Dennis G. Jarvis

After Chiang Mai recovered under King Kawila, the chedi's parasol was raised anew in 1788 and both viharns were rebuilt around 1805–1806. Later rulers of Chiang Mai kept supporting the temple: King Kawilorot Suriyawong donated the great bell (Deng Luang) around 1860, and King Inthawichayanon rebuilt the main viharn in 1873. In 1894 the temple became the seat of the seven Sangharajas of Lanna.

For centuries, reaching the temple meant hours of walking up steep forest paths. Khruba Srivichai began restoring the temple around 1920, and when Khruba Thoem became abbot in 1932 he had to build bamboo pipes to bring water down from Doi Pui.

Khruba Srivichai, the saint of Lanna, who led the building of the road up Doi Suthep · Photo: Unknown photographer (archival)

On 9 November 1934, Chao Kaew Nawarat broke ground for a road up the mountain. Khruba Srivichai acted as the spiritual centre of the project, receiving donations, while Khruba Thoem oversaw the work coming down from the temple side. More than 100,000 people volunteered — up to 5,000 on some days — and the road was finished in just over five months, opening for trial use on 30 April 1935. Originally called Doi Suthep Road, it was later renamed Srivichai Road in the monk's honour and is now part of Highway 1004.

The Khruba Srivichai monument at the foot of the mountain, where ground was broken in 1934 · Photo: Kimtuy

That same year (1935) the temple was registered as a national historic site. Between 2004 and 2010 the temple and the Fine Arts Department carried out a major restoration of the chedi and its grounds. Today Wat Phra That Doi Suthep Ratchaworawihan is a second-class royal temple.

Even with the road, walking up the mountain remains a Chiang Mai tradition. On the eve of Visakha Bucha, tens of thousands of people climb to pay respect to the relic and sleep on the temple terrace. And since 1964, Chiang Mai University's first year, when 291 founding students walked about 14 km up the mountain at the suggestion of Prof. Dr Boonsom Martin, the university's "Rap Nong Khuen Doi" freshman climb has been held every year.

The Lanna-style relic chedi clad in gilded copper, with golden parasols · Photo: Tewaprapas Makklai

The city's attachment to Doi Suthep shows in the cable-car story. When a cable car up the mountain was proposed in 1969, and again in 1986, both plans were fiercely opposed by Chiang Mai people and eventually dropped: many felt it would disrespect the relic and bring "khued" (misfortune) on the city, while pylons and cables would cut through Doi Suthep–Pui National Park. When the idea was studied again around 2014, it met the same opposition.

The chedi is classic Lanna art: a raised square base, tiers of lotus mouldings stepping up to a twelve-sided bell, and a ringed spire topped by a finial, all clad in gilded copper, with golden parasols at the corners. In local belief it is the birth-year relic shrine for people born in the Year of the Goat — a link to King Kawilorot Suriyawong, the Chiang Mai ruler born in a Goat year.