I live in Chiang Mai and have visited Ban Tawai many times over the past 6 years. We have also purchased many art pieces for our home and the most recent was a magnificent bronze statue of a Thai angel. There are hundreds of shops and galleries offering an incredible selection of arts, crafts, clothing, teak furniture, jewelry souvenirs and Much more. You can not see it all in one day but there is also a visitors map available to help you find what you are seeking. In general, most prices are very reasonable especially for the perceived values and apparent hard work involved in the creating of many of these pieces. Definitely a Must Visit place if you are traveling in Chiang Mai. Located south of Chiang Mai-15 minute drive outside of Hang Dong.

We visited Baan Tawai after an overload of shopping in Bangkok and Chiang Mai. I'm not really a shopaholic and I wasn't really sure what to expect. I'm the kind who carries shopping bags around, if you know what I mean :). However this place just blew me away. There is spectacular stuff to buy at Baan Tawai. We visited only a handful of shops but soon found ourselves looking up shipping container rates. There were so many more shops that we did not even look at. And, no, they are not all the same. There is some serious woodwork to be found here. I think it's at the Bali level or perhaps even better. There's furniture, vases, lampshades, kitchenware, tableware, curios and all sorts of decorative items made of wood. We bought a couple of elephants to stand guard outside our home. They were simply adorable. Everything is priced reasonably (this is where the night markets get their stuff from). The shop owners are friendly and are open to negotiation. There are some incredible bargains to be found here. The quality and variety of woodwork is right out of this world. We did see some shops selling stuff that was not woodwork as well. Another reason Baan Tawai is worth a visit is the crowd (or lack thereof). There are no hordes of tourists pushing you around. We went in the morning and got a lot of attention from the shop owners. It was a refreshing shopping experience. Anyone serious about doing up their homes can easily spend a day here. Even otherwise, this has got to be on the list of anyone visiting Chiang Mai.

My vendor (Wat is his name, i believe) provided great service and fair prices. He offered to build a frame for the art piece I bought, put in an LED light and have frame stained to color I wanted. Then he would package and ship it to USA at once. I liked it enough I bought another piece from him to lower the shipping costs. Too heavy to carry