We did do one last hike yesterday evening to wrap up 2025 right after coming back from Bora Bora.
Walked to the highest point in this area, Maisies peak. This year we did do some hiking but not anywhere close to last year.
Glad we did because today was all rain as will be the next whole week. It is bajji and chai time!
Savoring these small bits of happiness when we go up a local peak and drink chai.
The previous post in this series is here..
After going on the trail to the village, Goy had already got the car to the trail exit. We hopped in and went to another parking spot. Here we were to go on the Ang Ka trail to see the forest inside the top of a volcanic crater. We also got to see the highest point in Thailand which was within this park. There was a memorial for the king who used to hunt wild elephants in this park near this spot.
The whole ecosystem with walking birds, a spongy moss that releases water in a controlled way to form streams at the top, moss covered trees, a beautiful walkway with clear explanations.. loved it.
There is a Ho Chih Minh rain forest trail in Washington State in Olympic national park. This must be close to the original.. similar trees but different ecosystem because of the ground moss..
Here are the pictures..
A video highlights reel..
There were a. couple of vista points from which you could see the mountain ranges and clouds. We were ready to go to the next spot within the park. We also told Joy and Goy that we had lunch thanks to lefover breakfast and the to go we packed from Raj Dharbar the night before. We ate in the van while they also had their packed lunch. Then we drove slowly through the vista point areas while I clicked photos from the open window. It was chilly and we did not want to make the cold worse.
We were on to our next and last stop within the park..
The previous post in this series is here..
We drove to the Doi Inthanon Park sign where we had to pay token money to the local village people. They usually have a village lady accompany tourists on the walk to the village. We spent an hour walking through the forest on the Pha Dok Sieo trail crossing multiple waterfalls on the way and learning a lot of things about the forest and the village we were visiting.
The village was again inhabited by folks who originally came from Burma. They cultivated coffee (originally Heroin which was discontinued by government and switched to coffee) and rice.
Our guide was a lady from the village. She explained everything on the long hike and Joy translated where reqiured. It was a pleasant day and we thoroughly enjoyed the hike. It ended in the village where we met a very old lady operating a loom to make scarves. We sat at a cafe and had bananas and San managed to get a coffee (made from local beans) and it was time to walk to the car and drive to our next stop.
While we walked to the car, we met a 106 year old grandma who was so sweet. She could not hear at all, but she asked San to sit next to her to take photos and spread the tarp for her. We were truly touched by this grandma. She had three kids, the oldest son was 86 and the youngest daughter was 66. We met the daughter. Apparently grandma had a tough life in Burma.
Here are the pictures..
Landscape mode photos.. we learned about stingless bees, plants that can confuse fish and make them drunk, jumping snakes, and a lot of forest facts..
and a video highlights reel..
We said bye to the village and moved to stop 3 for the day..
Copyright © 2012, Sundar Narayanan. All rights reserved.
