Takua Pa Old Town

A registered old town

Takua Pa Old Town is on the national list of old towns kept under the Prime Minister's Office regulation on conserving Rattanakosin and Thailand's old towns, one of 36. A town has to show it: a history as a town, people living in it without a break to this day, and a clear boundary such as a moat or a wall. Plenty of places with the remains of old walls do not make the list.

In March 2026 the old town won a bronze award at the Green Destinations Awards, presented at the ITB Berlin travel fair and received by Thailand's Department of Tourism. Thailand's environment policy office credits the community's own conservation work, led by a group of young residents called Takua Pa Forum.

How tin built the town

Early in the Rattanakosin era, which began in 1782, Takua Pa was a frontier town. Burmese attacks damaged it and carried off its people, and the town moved south-west to the site of today's Udom Thara Road, where a river runs round almost all of it, and a wall went up. Chinese settlers came later from Penang, Malacca and Singapore to mine tin, and the ore was carried into town to be sold. Chinese businessmen and the miners pooled money for roads, a hospital and schools, which is why people here say the mines built the town. The Phang Nga tourism office dates the tin boom to the reign of King Rama VII, from 1925.

The buildings

The oldest houses are on Udom Thara Road: two-storey homes nearly 200 years old, built by the first Chinese builders with load-bearing brick walls on all four sides and timber beams upstairs. The doors and windows are small, because the walls carry the weight.

Si Takua Pa Road was the commercial street, lined with shops and banks. Its houses keep brick side walls but have timber fronts and backs with taller windows, which made the upper floors lighter and airier. Buildings younger than about 60 years are reinforced concrete, with thinner columns. The Phang Nga tourism office describes the style as Sino-Portuguese, a mix of East and West: rows of arches along two-storey shophouses, with colour and decoration on the fronts.

The covered walkways

There is no pavement in front of the houses. Instead a covered walkway runs through the front of the buildings on both sides of the street, 2.5 to 3 metres wide, known by its Chinese name, ngo kha khi, the five-foot way. It keeps off the sun and the rain, the shops open onto it, and it is the same design as the walkways in Phuket's old town.

What to see

• Tao Ming School, the town's first private Chinese-language school, built in 1920 by Chinese craftsmen with money from the mine owners and merchants. It is Sino-Portuguese in style, still in good condition, and on Rat Bamrung Road.
• The Pun Thao Kong Am shrine, built in 1776 at what was then the town's port: the first shrine in Takua Pa, raised by its Chinese residents.
• The Chao Pho Kuan U shrine, which the Phang Nga tourism office calls the town's guardian shrine.
• Wat Phra That Khiri Khet on Khao Phra Bat, a white chedi on the hilltop. The path up, about 3 km, passes under two lines of large trees that close overhead like an arch.
• Wat Pathum Thara, also called Wat Na Mueang, a southern Thai temple whose old ordination hall, with timber pillars and plastered walls, is in poor repair. The river once ran past its front, carrying goods and ore, and the boiler of a steamboat used against pirates was found there. It now stands on a concrete base.
• Street art on corners and blank walls around the old town.

The Sunday walking street

On Sunday evenings Si Takua Pa Road closes to traffic for the Takua Pa walking street, with local food and sweets for sale and the Chao Pho Kuan U shrine to visit, according to the Phang Nga tourism office. Some listings say it runs mainly in the high season, so check before you drive up for it.

Food to look for

Most of the Chinese who settled here were Hokkien, Hakka, Cantonese and Hainanese, and their cooking, made with local ingredients, is still the town's. Look for Hokkien fried noodles, mu hong (braised pork belly), fried fish with salted soybeans, and pork-bone soup. The sweets sold in the shops along the old streets make the usual souvenirs: tao so pastries, khanom pia filled with winter melon, khanom mon, and peanut and sesame brittle.

Many of the cafés are run by young people who came home to Takua Pa. The four Takua Pa places in the 2026 MICHELIN Guide selection are not in the old town but in the newer town, a few kilometres north on and near the main road.

Who keeps it going

Takua Pa Forum is a group of young residents who came back after university, backed by older generations. They have collected old photographs from families to tell the town's history, raised money to restore some of the old buildings, held talks with other old-town communities, and trained local schoolchildren as young guides who explain the town to visitors.

Little Amazon, 6 km away

Khlong Sang Ne, known as Little Amazon, is a short canal in Bang Nai Si, about 6 km from the old town, that runs from Khao Bang Tao to the Takua Pa River. Boats pass under banyan trees hundreds of years old whose branches hang over the water like a curtain. By day the snakes in the branches are asleep and seen from a distance: green snakes, mangrove snakes and pythons. Hornbills come for the banyan figs, and herons and other birds come to feed. The Phang Nga tourism office gives opening hours of 9.00 to 17.00 on working days. Half-day and full-day canoe trips to it run from Khao Lak.

Getting there

The old town is about 28 km by road from Bang Niang market, around half an hour without traffic. It is off the main road south, there is no train, and Takua Pa's bus terminal is about 7 km from the old town, so most visitors come by hire car, scooter or a taxi for the afternoon.

When to go

It is a town, not one of the marine parks that close from mid-May to mid-October, so it works in any month, and the covered walkways keep the rain off. Come on a Sunday afternoon to stay for the walking street, and in the daytime for the Little Amazon boats.

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