Mar. 9

I get a bus from Chiang Mai to Phitsanulok. From there I take another bus to Nakkon Thai. I arrive there just about 5pm. There is no real public transport to the park but there is a sort of park van. I take that for the last 30km to the park. Once we enter the park, the last 10km are all uphill as most of the park sits above 1000m in elevation. I checked in at reception and then set up my tent under a bunch of pine trees. The campsite was very similar to Thung Salaeng Luang, with many pine trees and little else.

The mountain known as Phu Hin Rong Kla served as the strategic headquarters of the Communist Party of Thailand between 1967 and 1982. The area was declared a national park in 1984. I don’t often visit parks for their history but when that history takes place in a remote, forested area with trails and wildflowers, I’m definitely interested!

The park was a battlefield for 20 years between Thai troops and the communists. The Thai troops just could not defeat them, despite numerous efforts. The Communist party had grown significantly after a massacre of students in Bangkok in 1976 during a student-worker uprising. The Thai government announced that it would give amnesty for all the students who joined after 1976. The departure of the students was bascially the end of the movement. The CPT surrendered after a final military push in late 1982.

I ate dinner at a restaurant about 5 minutes walk from the campsite. It was fairly and I was one of the only diners. Despite the elevation the park didn’t get as cold as I expected during the night. I was okay in my thin sleeping bag.

Day 2

The next morning after breakfast I started to explore the park. Most of the main sites are off the main road through the park, most within walking distance (for me anyway!). I was checking out an area of overhanging rocks that the insurgent army took shelter under when it started to rain. It was light at first but became very heavy. I was glad I had under the shelter of the rocks. The rain lasted over an hour. I start to walk on the road again and only get about 2km before it starts to rain again. I take shelter under a sign. Once that rain stops, I follow a sideroad to the attractions in the park. It’s still very overcast and misty.

The park is very rocky and has some unique landscapes not found anywhere else in Thailand. They are certainly unlike anything I have ever seen. The park has many orchids growing all over the rocks but most aren’t in flower. I visit the rock formations, an air raid shelter and the ruins of the old administration buildings. Basically empty wooden huts, they never had electricity or running water. I had walked about 4km to reach the area. As I walked back a truck pulled over and offered me a ride back to HQ, so I took it. I was curious to see how my tent fared in the rain. This was the first significant rainfall I had seen since about Jan. 26. It is the dry season and I wasn’t expecting any rain.

Back at the campsite I check my tent and the bottom half got wet. It seems they fly of my tent is loosing it’s waterproofing abilities due to age. If it was sunny, I would have been fine and could have dried everything but it wasn’t. It actually started to rain more again around 4.30. With my tent and sleeping bag half wet, I had no choice but to move into one of the cabins at the park. I took a very basic room in a cabin about 5 minutes walk past the campsite for 300 baht ($10). I hung up everything to dry outside on the vast veranda.

Day 3

The rain stopped earlier last night and I was hoping that was it for the time being. I decided to stay in the cabin for one more night because I wanted to leave the park the next morning and didn’t want to have to deal with a wet tent if it rained again. I walk in the opposite direction to another rock formation today, Lan Hin Taek. Today the sky is clear and I get great views from the edge of the formation which is on a high cliff. I walk back to the main road and go past the area I explored yesterday. My plan is to walk the road the whole 6km to the attractions and then hitch back. The road goes through forest and can be good for spotting flowers and butterflies. I stop at an area with a small bridge over a small stream. I go to check out the stream when I hear something slip into the water. My first thought is a frog but when I turn to look, it’s actually a snake! The snake was swimming in the water when it stopped briefly to take a look back at me, then it was gone. It totally disappeared even though the water wasn’t that deep or the vegetation around very dense, I just couldn’t see where it went.

I carried on walking and arrived at the Political Military School HQ. It’s another collection of wood huts. There are a lot of butterflies around and a few lizards. I start walking back to camp and before I can hitch a ride, it starts to rain again, though only lightly. It continues as a sunshower for at least 15 minutes. After it’s done, I hitch back to camp. Most of my stuff is dry and it will be ready to pack so I can leave tomorrow morning.

The next I’m ready to leave the park and wait for a ride into Nakkon Thai, 30km away. A older guy in a pickup gives me a ride right to the bus station. From there I take a bus going to Phitsanulok but get off at the main #12 highway, as I’m going in the opposite direction. I just took any transport going to the highway. From there I waited a bit and then got a bus to Lom Sak. I waited in Lom Sak for another bus going to Khon Kaen. I was going to Nam Nao National Park, on the way the Khon Kaen. The bus was super packed, even in the aisles. I had to stand the whole hour drive to the park entrance. The bus dropped me off at the park entrance which was in the middle of nowhere. The park is one of the last remaining places for Asian elephant in Thailand and there were signs all over the highway warning drivers to be careful. Apparently the elephants like to cross the highway at night which runs through the middle of the park.

Comments (0) Mar 31 2012

I also slept in here until the mornings chill disappeared. After breakfast I hitched a ride up to the nature trail where I finished hiking yesterday. I started walking slowly downhill scanning the forest for anything. I found 4 more species of wild orchid which I was really happy about. I saw many more orchids but it doesn’t seem to be the flowering season for most of them.

As I walked along I heard a big crash in the trees. My first thought was monkeys, yay! But as I looked, it turned out it was a pair of giant squirrels. These really are giants at 1m in length from head to tail. I was able to get a few photos before they disappeared back into the forest. I hiked 8km downhill by 5pm. I was walking slow and I stopped to photograph anything cool, taking the time to set up my tripod and everything. I was only a few kilometres from the HQ but hitched a ride anyway. There wasn’t much to see along this stretch as I was getting more into civilization in the form of farms growing strawberries which are all over this part of the mountain. Out of the 16km from the HQ to the summit, I had walked all of it except 2km!

Though I was disappointed in the park for not having enough access to its forest, I still enjoyed it very much and got to see some really cool animals and plants.  The next day I was ready to leave and get to the next park. After breakfast I packed up my things and returned the blanket I had rented. I was more than ready to pay for renting the blanket and pay for my camping but the guy at the counter just took the blanket and that was it. He waved me on! So in the end I camped for free with their warm blanket.  I only waited about one minute too before I got a ride in the back of a pickup back to Chom Thong. I got a bus back to Chiang Mai and that’s where I am now.

I had to sort out my visa, which expired 5 days before I was to leave Thailand. I didn’t want any problems when I had to leave so I spent the day getting a one week visa extension and I am good to go now. I will leave Chiang Mai tomorrow for more national parks in the northeast.

Comments (0) Mar 08 2012

I didn’t wait too long before I got a ride in the back of a pickup to the second checkpoint at 1600m. They road branches off here and my ride was going the other way. I started walking and waited about 15 minutes before I got my second ride all the way to the summit with a nice young Thai family here on vacation. I hiked the one nature trail at the summit, the Ang Ka trail. Most of the way it was on a raised boardwalk and passed through some very nice cloudforest, but it just wasn’t that long. I jumped down off the boardwalk to get some close up photos of orchids and rhododendrons.

After learning that there weren’t that many hiking trails in the park, I gave myself an idea while getting a ride up to the summit the day before. I still wanted to spend 3 nights in the park but needed something to keep me busy during the day. I had the idea to hitch a ride up to the summit and then walk back down as far as I could get before sunset and then hitch back to camp.

So after doing the Ang Ka trail, I started walking down. It was monday and the road wasn’t that busy. As I’ve said before, a road through a forest is just like a very wide trail and can still be good for exploring. I saw some butterflies and more wild orchids. I walked 5km down to the start of the next nature trail. There was a lot of infrastructure dedicated to this trail. The trail was only 2.78km long but required a guide.  I didn’t need a guide to see the way and my guide didn’t do much except point out information that was on displays placed along the trail. It wasn’t till we got to an open area that he really became helpful. This area was the habitat for goral, a goat like animal that loves the steep and rocky cliffs. I had seen their droppings in Foping Reserve in China while looking for pandas but never thought I would see one.

My guide was looking around and spotted one resting on a rock far below us. I suspect the guide had seen them there before because he knew where to look. It was quite far away but I was able to see it and even get a couple of pics. The photos weren’t great but I was super happy to see such an elusive and rare animal. We finished the trail around5.45pm and I started walking down, hoping to hitch a ride to HQ. A few minutes later my young guide was headed down the mountain on his moto and gave me a ride. Despite the parks popularity, not many people seemed to stay overnight. I was often the only one eating at the huge restaurant near HQ. Nights were fairly quite and cold at camp. I had to rent a blanket here too, as it got down to 12C and my sleeping barely keeps me warm at anything below 15C.

Comments (0) Mar 08 2012

In Chom Thong I had to get transport up the park itself.  As I approached a pickup truck for the park, a Thai/Indian couple also approached. The Thai women asked about going to the park. The driver wanted about $40 for the 3 of us and he would stop at some waterfalls along the way. This was more than what I wanted. I just wanted a ride to the park and would ‘sightsee’ it on my own. I thought I saw the couple get out of their own car and approach the public pickup. I found this strange that they would take public transport when they had their own car. I had to ask them. Turns out they had their own rental car but the woman ( the only one with an international driving license) was too afraid to drive up the mountain. I waited for them to decide what they were going to do and thankfully the husband convinced her she could do it and they offered me to join them.

It was about 40km from Chom Thong to the summit of the mountain. A paved road led all the way to the top. We stopped at the HQ at 1200m for lunch. Then we drove to the summit. There wasn’t much to see at the summit except some nice cloudforest. We stopped at 2 huge pagodas built for the king and queen and then drove back to HQ. They dropped me off here and I walked 600m to the campsite. The park was way too busy and developed for me, with a few villages inside the park and a lot of infrastructure. These were not small rural villages but had eateries, shops, electronic gas pumps and some nice homes. Thankfully I found the most private area I could near the campsite out of sight of everyone beside the laundry building. The toilet/shower was close but most of the food options were back at the HQ. I was really disappointed too that there were no trails near the camp. In fact there were hardly any hiking trails at all in the park. The park is more for visitors with their own wheels to see the highest point in Thailand and stop at a few waterfalls along the way. The park had multiple souvenir shops, restaurants and coffee shops at the top, the pagodas and the 2 nature trails.

My biggest gripe about national parks has always been that you need your own transport to visit most of the attractions of the park.  There was no public transport here either, so the next morning after breakfast, I proceeded to hitch again.

Comments (0) Mar 08 2012

After 4 nights at Thung Salaeng Luang National Park, I was ready to head to my next park, Doi Inthanon, up in the north of Thailand using Chiang Mas as my base, but first I had to get out of Thung Salaeng Luang.  The guy that drove me here gave me his number and said he would come pick me up but me, being a budget, resourceful, independent backpacker, I wanted to see if I could do it on my own (and for cheaper). One of the rangers gave me a ride on his moto to a junction on a main road. He said there was a bus at 12, it was 10.30am now. There wasn’t a lot of traffic around this area and I didn’t want to take my chances if a bus never came, the ranger didn’t seem to sure about it, so I just started hitchhiking. I had incredible success hitching my first time in Thailand. I hitched a ride for 400km in the back of a pickup truck. It took 8 hours but got me to where I was going for free and hassle free. The family even bought me food when we stopped for lunch.

Being a solo traveler I always think it’s easier to get a ride. People see you alone and many want to help you out. I didn’t wait too long before I got a ride up the main highway. From there I got on a bus and went back to Phitsanulok. I waited about 2 hours at the station and was then on another bus to Chiang Mai. I arrived in Chiang Mai at 8.30pm. It was a long day and strange to think that just that morning I was camping under pine trees and now I was in a city. Chiang Mai is one of the nicest cities in Thailand and is hugely popular with locals and travelers. There is a lot to do in the city and the province but I was only interested in Doi Inthanon, a national park about 100km from here containing Thailand’s highest peak, Doi Inthanon at 2565m above sea level.

After a filling breakfast I took a public transport in the form of a pickup truck with benches in the back and headed for Chom Thong, the closest town to the park.

Comments (0) Mar 08 2012

I was going to leave the park today but decided to stay another night. My routine has been to camp at least 3 nights at every park I go to but thought this park deserved another night. I again rented a mountain bike, a much better one today that I didn’t notice yesterday. It had working brakes and was silent compared with the squeaking monstrosity I had yesterday. I couldn’t sneak up on anything riding that!

I decided to ride out the same way I walked the first day towards the rapids and then follow the road past where I branched off to the rapids. The road led to a remote and basic ranger camp and then kept going, so I kept following it. I wasn’t sure how far it went or where it led, I just wanted to see more of the park. The road eventually ended at a small waterfall. Again being the dry season, it wasn’t that impressive but I could see how it could be in the wet season. It wasn’t that high but very wide. There were tons of butterflies here and I decided to hang around a while and try my luck with them. They loved the sweat on my backpack and I had multiple species on it. I spent about an hour here and just as I was packing up to leave, I turned around and saw a huge, beautiful white butterfly right beside me on my pack. I had not seen this butterfly around. I had my camera ready and this guy let me get really close and I got some amazing shots of it. I was so happy!

I rode back to the rapids of the first day and went for a short swim there.  There were a lot of butterflies here too but didn’t have as much luck with them and I rode back to camp. That night I just hung around camp and spotted more deer and moths around my tent.

Comments (0) Mar 08 2012

Today I rented a mountain bike to ride to a savanna/grasslands 14km away. It was a bit too far to try and walk there and back. The way there was very hilly and in the open for a while. It wasn’t long before I was drenched in sweat! I had to walk the bike up most hills because it didn’t have a very low gear or decent brakes for that matter. The way there was not as interesting as yesterday and didn’t pass through as much forest. I finally got to the end of the road a couple hours later. There turned out to be a few monks up here. I guess they came for the solitude. I saw them drive by me in a pickup truck. There were the only people I saw out in the park. The area here had been burned a few weeks back but now was totally covered with newly emerging ferns and some very large pine trees. There was a campsite here but unfortunately no water source around. I had a bit of lunch here and then turned back.

The way back seemed easier as it was more downhill but I was very cautious on the bike with hardly no brakes! A few times I just let loose and it was pretty scary flying down the huge hills because I knew I couldn’t stop quickly if I needed to, but, what a rush!

I stopped at one part of the trail that went through some forest just to take a rest. There were some butterflies around so I spent some time trying to photograph them. I wasn’t making any noise and was standing at the side of the road looking into the forest when I heard some noise. An animal was just off the road and walking towards me! It had no idea I was standing there. I was ready with my camera to focus on whatever it was. Just as it came into view it saw me too and changed course. Thankfully it didn’t go too far and crossed the road about 10m away from me. It was a crab eating mongoose. Very cool and totally unexpected. It paused long enough on the road for me to get a photograph of it and then continued on.

I arrived back at camp about 6 hours after leaving. I ate my instant noodles for dinner and then thought I would do my nightspotting just around the camp. There were at least 4 deer right near my tent. As longs as I didn’t move towards them, they seemed to be okay with me and didn’t run away. In fact, one of them came closer and walked by me about 5m away. There were plenty of moths around. They loved the moisture on my water bottle and the sweat on my hiking boots.

I was camping under some huge pine trees with dead needles covering the ground. The smell of pine reminded me of Canada and specifically Algonquin Provincial Park,  where I was also camping under pine trees.

Comments (0) Mar 08 2012

I waited for the day to warm up a bit before climbing out of my tent, as it was still only 14C at 6am. At around 8am I got up and  ate the sandwiches the ranger bought me for breakfast and had a 3 in 1 coffee. There are a few trails leading out from the ranger station here and the shortest one, 7km one way, was the first I was going to tackle. I say trail but they are really one lane laterite roads, which to me is just a very wide trail when there isn’t too much traffic. They can still be a great place to spot wildlife and this area of the park was not busy.  Indeed, I didn’t see anyone else when I was out in the park and hardly anyone back at the ranger station either.

The park is very hilly and has a very interesting mix of forest like I’ve never seen before. It has some of Thailand’s only natural grasslands/savanna.  Add to this forests of pine trees, then some evergreen forest, deciduous forest and mixed pine/deciduous forest. This was unlike any park I’ve seen before and for that reason I decided to stay an extra day more than I had originally planned. I figured too with the hassle of getting here, I should make it worth my while.

There were a lot of butterflies along the road. Some I recognized from Vietnam and other parks in Thailand and some new ones I’d never seen before. I’ve been really getting into photographing butterflies, which most of the time is not easy. I chase them around until they land long enough for me to approach them closely. Most of the time I want to get a shot of them using my 60mm macro lens, which means I want to get really close to really bring out the detail. It doesn’t always work and I usually take a shot from the standing position and then slowly kneel down and try to get closer and closer. It’s very rewarding when the butterfly doesn’t move and I get a crisp clear shot. I’m starting to learn the behavior of certain species too. I know the ones that will land a lot and the ones that just seem to always fly or only land for a second or 2 at a time. I’m still after those ones!

I was following the road to my destination 7km away, but really had no idea where I was hiking too! The sign was in Thai and english but I didn’t know exactly what it was. I reached a junction and took the road to the right. Turns out this lead me to where I was going. The mystery destination turned out to be some rapids but this being the dry season, there were no rapids. The river was very low and I was able to walk out onto rocks in the river. One thing I did see here which was very surprising, was some elephant droppings, that were about 2 weeks old. I didn’t know there were elephants in the park. Later on I saw evidence of them, with trails of stamped down vegetation along the sides of the road.

I debated swimming but in the end spent some time photographing an all yellow tiny butterfly that landed on my pack. The park is at about 1000m elevation and it wasn’t steamy hot anyway, so I wasn’t dying for a swim. In fact I had hardly sweated at all. I hiked back to HQ and arrived about 4.30. The 14km hike took me about 7 hours in total but I stopped a lot to take photos and for a small lunch of peanuts and waffer cookies that I bought while waiting for transport to the park yesterday.

I needed dinner and one of the rangers was kind enough to take me down to the junction to buy some food. I bought some fried rice for takeaway and some instant rice porridge, peanuts, orange juice and noodles for food tomorrow, so I didn’t have to come back to the junction again.

That night I decided to try a nighthike. Before I even got onto the trail, I saw 2 sets of eyeshine just off the park road. They were deer, I’m pretty sure barking deer. On the trail I saw some eyes way in the distance on a large head, again, pretty sure it was a barking deer. It let out a loud and piercing high pitched bark/squeal that kind of spooked me for a second! I wasn’t expecting that. The part of the trail that went through the forest was further on and I didn’t make it that far, as it was very hilly for walking and after having walked 14km earlier, I wasn’t up for another mega hike. I saw a frog under a leaf on the road just as I was turning back. Back at my tent I saw a few more deer about 10m away.

Comments (0) Mar 08 2012

I went to the TAT ( Tourism Authority of Thailand) office before going to park. I was just going to go to the main headquarters of the park, located along a main highway, like the guidebook suggested, but the girls at TAT said not to go there (not sure why?). Instead they told me to take the bus to a main junction at km 100 and then get another bus from there to a ranger substation of the park. They wrote the name down in Thai for me to show to the bus driver. They said there was food there and someone would speak english there.  I thought, okay, this should be easy, no problem. Man, was I wrong! This turned into a really frustrating day!

I got to km 100 easily. From there I waited for the next bus. I showed a Thai guy waiting where I was going. Though he didn’t speak english, he made me understand that he was going there too. Great, I can just tag along with him. We took the next bus for about 20 minutes and then got out at another junction. I thought we would just wait a little while here and then get another bus to the park. Well, a little turned into a lot. Two hours later we were still waiting and then the guy got some information or something and said at 4pm we could get to the park.  When 4pm came there was still no bus but a guy with a pickup used for public transport said he could take us the remaining 30km for $20. I didn’t know we were still 30km from the park! I called the TAT office to see if they had any advice for getting to the park cheaper. All they said was to come back to Phitsanulok! I did not want to do that. Being a budget and resourceful independent backpacker, I thought I could find another cheaper way to the park. Word got out that I was looking for a ride and a guy offered to take me in his own vehicle for half the price. This sounded good to me and we were finally on our way. It was a hilly and winding road to the park.

Once we finally got there, the place was nearly deserted. There was only one ranger around, he (or anyone else as I later learned)  didn’t speak english and there was no food available there. Nothing like the information TAT gave me. I wondered why they would send me out to such a remote substation of the park like this. The guy who drove me here spoke a little bit of english and helped me arrange some food and camping. Food was available at the junction to the park, 2km away down a huge hill. The guy was nice enough to go there and get me some fried rice for dinner and sandwiches for breakfast.

I do like remote areas with no people and this was definitely that! I thought about leaving in a day or 2 but I came to really like the place and ended up staying 4 nights. The park is at some elevation and gets quite cool for Thailand at night. The first night it dropped to 12C! My thin sleeping bag and silk liner were not enough and I rented a warm blanket for my next 3 nights.

Comments (0) Mar 07 2012

I packed up my tent and had breakfast at Sai Yok National Park before leaving for Ayuthaya. It was going to be a long day. Though I didn’t have any really long bus rides ahead, I had to take 3 buses to get to Ayuthaya and I wasn’t sure how long that would take. First I needed to get out of Sai Yok, to the main road 5km away. I asked about a moto ride to the main road and was directed to an old guy with a motorbike that had a custom sidecar for transporting goods welded onto his moto. He had huge rice sacks filled with ice on it and moved some of them so I could sit. They started to melt as we drove towards the road and the melted icewater was splashing my pants. No big deal, it was hot out and I knew it would dry quick. Once we got to the main road, I went to take out 20 baht ( 66 cents) to pay the guy and he refused, he didn’t want any money. That was very nice of him. I waited a little while but then finally caught a nice airconditioned bus to Kanchanaburi.  From there I had an hour wait till the next bus to Suphanburi. Once I got to Suphanburi, it was almost 4pm but I didn’t have to wait long at all to get the next bus to Ayuthaya. From the bus stop there, I walked to a small road, known as a soi here, where there are some guesthouses. Many of them were full or only had expensive rooms left. I ended up staying at Chantanna House.

Ayuthaya was once the capital of Siam (what Thailand was called before) for almost 400 years. It has many temples, some in ruins, some restored. It is a little similar to Cambodia’s Angkor Wat, with some temples even being built by the Khmer, but not quite as grand. I’m not going to go into the history of it all but I thought it would be a cool place to check out for a few days and break up the national park circuit I’m doing.

The next day I rented a bicycle to check out some of the ruins. Later that day my friend Icy (her nickname) met me. We both rented bicycles and spent the weekend exploring the ruins. After I was all templed out, my friend went back to work and I went on to my next national park, Thung Salaeng Luang. First I went from Ayuthaya to Phitsanulok, about 4 hours north. I stayed the night here and the next day was on a bus to the park.

Comments (0) Mar 07 2012