Museum of World Insects and Natural Wonders — Attraction in Chiang Mai Province

As a tour guide for over 20 years, I've always enjoyed bringing tourists to experience the rich culture and history of Chiang Mai. I see myself as a representative of my country, sharing its wonders with visitors from around the globe. It's a point of pride to introduce them to fascinating museums, both public and private, and I've always appreciated the reciprocal relationship where my groups are welcomed and I, as the guide, am granted complimentary access. This allows me to continue bringing business and enriching the visitor experience.

However, my recent experience with one particular museum in Chiang Mai has been shockingly disappointing. Their policy is, frankly, absurd: they require large tour groups for entry. If I arrive with just one or two clients, eager to learn and explore, they are turned away. This is not only embarrassing for me as a guide, but it also deprives my clients of an opportunity to engage with local culture. It's the most ridiculous policy I've encountered in my two decades in the tourism industry, and it demonstrates a fundamental misunderstanding of how tourism works.

It appears the museum owner is prioritizing immediate, and likely minimal, financial gain over building long-term relationships and fostering goodwill within the tourism community. This short-sighted approach, focusing only on immediate profit and disregarding the long-term impact on the museum's reputation and potential visitor numbers, is detrimental to the museum's long-term success. What's worse, this policy disrespects the vital role tour guides play in promoting and recommending attractions.

Therefore, I will not only refuse to recommend this museum in the future, but I will also actively advise other tour guides against bringing their clients here unless they are part of a large tour group. I cannot in good conscience recommend a place that discriminates against small groups and demonstrates such a blatant disregard for the tourism professionals who bring...

This is an amazing place filled to the brim with priceless collections of all the wonders of nature, majority are insects. It is full of characters and surprises, but you'll need to spend sometime to read, tons of fascinating articles that will change the way you think about mosquitos, and how all creatures do have thier purposes in nature.

Mr Manop and Dr Rampa are a very passionate couple with fascinating life as mosquitos researchers, the museum is thier love letter to the mother nature and thier philosophy on how human should live coexistingly with nature. It warms my heart that a place like this exist.

I had a privilege to have a small chat with Dr Rampa herself and her daughter who runs the place and thier do not encourage photography and videography in the museum due to the fact that many objects in there are one of a kind and highly sought after by collectors. Oftenly when a visitor posting photos of objects in the museum, the staff (one lady) will be bombarded by phone calls and enquiries which she doesn't have a resource to handle. And as you can imagine, people can be really inrespectful, taking selfies and using flash which also destroy the specimens so please understand and be respectful of thier wishes, it is thier home after all.

If you love nature the way they are, you will love...

Being a professional entomologist specialising in southeast Asian bugs, I couldn't visit Chiang Mai without checking the place everyone had asked me about. So here we go.

This Thai couple dedicated their life studying insects and it shows. The exhibit takes place in their house and displays tens of thousands of specimens of insects, other arthropods and small vertebrates collected or purchased from all over the world over decades. The sheer numbers are impressive for a private collection.

But.

It appears the place was frozen in time a decade ago. Lots of specimens are in bad state, few have collection data, there's very little information, everything is mixed up, even mixing orders, families, continents. If you're a professional, you'll get upset. If you're an amateur, you won't learn a thing. If you just want to show bugs to your kids, it may work to impress them with giant insects and lots of diversity.

While I have a lot of respect for the tens of thousands of hours of work to build the collection, I just can't get over the fact that this is a capharnaüm of specimens and such a missed opportunity to educate people by displaying correct information and sorting specimens according to taxonomy...