Until a few days ago we didn’t even know that the Royal Park Rajapurek existed and have since searched our Lonely Planet Guide to find no mention of it! We happened upon it whilst looking at a tourist map of Chiang mai, followed by a bit of googling (info was not easy to find!). It was built in 2006 to celebrate the King of Thailands 60th Anniversary of the accession to the throne along with His 80th Birthday celebrations.

We decided to spend a morning heading over to the area to see what it was all about.

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Got a little distracted and stumbled across the local deer population at the Chiang mai Night Safari.

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Then we found a sign saying “Agro-tourist Bees”… we couldn’t not follow that…

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but all we found was a bee-keeping area (with a giant agro bee out the front)…

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before we finally decided to explore the Royal Park Rajapurek.

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What we discovered was beyond anything I was imagining! We explored endless gardens which seemed to go on forever all culminating at the final point, the Royal Pavilion, built for the King.

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(the cool room - was amazing in the crazy Chiang mai heat)

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(Mitch found some Orchids)

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(Some amusing Toilet signs)

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(a beautiful dragonfly)

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(more flowers)

And finally we arrived at the Royal Pavilion.

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which sits atop a hill watching over all the gardens.

All-in-all it was an amazing place filled with amazing gardens from countries all across the globe… I was very glad we stumbled across this find.