Thailand > Visit to the tourist Karen tribe

Today we are going on an excursion to the National Park, with a visit to the highest mountain in Thailand. At 6:00 a.m. the alarm goes off. After breakfast, the whole group is ready in the hotel lobby at seven o’clock. The National Park is a two-hour drive from Chiang Mai. Along the way we stop for coffee at a gas station. Toy buys a kind of rice cakes, which taste very good. In Doi Inthanon National Park we transfer to smaller vans to drive up to the summit. The top lies at 2,565 meters and is therefore the highest mountain in Thailand. At the top it is chilly (Toy even finds it cold), misty, and sometimes there is a light drizzle.

Thailand - A group photo at the highest point in Thailand

It’s only nine o’clock, so it will probably get warmer later. At the summit we take a group photo. It feels odd that everyone is wearing sweaters and long pants in the picture. We visit the visitor center and walk the jungle trail, a hike of about forty-five minutes among the gigantic trees of the jungle. The entire trail is fitted with a wooden boardwalk, so we walk just above the sometimes soggy ground. Along the way we can enjoy the nature and the magnificent colors of the jungle. Back at the main road the vans are waiting, and we continue toward the Napamaytanidol Chedi, two enormous pagodas built in 1989 to honor King Bhumibol’s 60th birthday. In the pagodas—one for the King and one for the Queen—stand colossal Buddha statues (shoes off, of course). On the way to the hill tribe village we stop at a roadside market. Here, products of the hill tribes are sold. While everyone flocks to the market, I walk toward a small village a bit further on. The market doesn’t really interest me. Children are playing along the way. In the village, an old man stops with his scooter. He has a black stone with him, which he probably wants to sell. I don’t understand him, but I don’t have any money with me anyway. Back at the market, everyone has stocked up. Geert has bought sunflower seeds and Toy has bought boiled peanuts. These peanuts don’t taste very good.

Thailand - A walk through the jungle

After the market we drive on to the Karen tribe. The village lies right off the main road. The paved side road runs all the way into the village, with a small square for vans to turn around. This reveals that quite a few tourists come here. No one is surprised by our visit. Geert hands out his collection of pens to the teacher at the local school. It feels a bit strange, looking at the people like this. It reminds me of an open-air museum. At the large waterfall further along the route we have a picnic. The hotel has provided an extensive lunch. At the picnic tables, with a view of the big waterfall, I enjoy the meal. After lunch I climb up the waterfall via the stairs with more than 400 steps. At the top there turns out to be only a parking lot. I turn back. With the vans we return to the hotel. In the room I first take a bath. Geert has gone swimming in the meantime. At a quarter to six we drive to the center for a Thai massage. Very funny how such a small Thai woman has so much strength to massage the muscles. After two hours the whole body has had a turn. The van drops us off at the Night Bazaar. Here we eat at a Benelux restaurant (you can have Thai food back in the Netherlands too). The restaurant is right next to the German one from yesterday. After dinner we get dessert at McDonald’s. We finish the evening with coffee in a sort of pharmacy. We stroll through the bazaar and around eleven o’clock we drive back to our hotel with the hotel van.