Chiang Mai (Northern Thailand) Tourist Guide


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Visiting Mountainous Doi Angkhang,
Shangri La of the North

Text : Andrew Forbes
Images : David Henley

When residents of Bangkok, Thailand's sprawling, intense, polluted and over-populated capital seek respite from the stress and the heat, their thoughts - and very often their feet - turn northwards to Chiang Mai. To the average Bangkokian, Chiang Mai remains much more exotic than to the Westerner. In indication of this, many central Thais remain convinced that Chiang Mai is a very cold place, requiring scarves, blankets at night, and padded jackets.

By contrast, the people of North Thailand are well aware that Chiang Mai is no longer a Siamese Shangri-La. And, of course, except for one or two weeks in January, it is never really all that cool. Nowadays, ringed by a dusty eight-lane super highway, served by Thailand's third international airport, and plied by fleets of noisy tuk-tuks, Chiang Mai has become a busy city. As the visitor soon finds out, although never as oppressive as Bangkok, at the height of the hot season when temperatures soar to 40o Celsius, Chiang Mai can be trying indeed.

So, whilst dreams in Bangkok turn on refreshingly cool evenings by the Ping River as the capital suffocates in the hot season, where do the people of the North go when faced with the baking reality of Chiang Mai in April? The answer is "to the hills" which all but surround the northern capital.

Yunnanese girl spraying seedlings

One of the most interesting of such destinations is Doi Angkhang, which at almost 2,000 metres is usually cool, and often really cold. Early in January temperatures near the summit can fall to just below zero which, with "wind chill factor" (or, more truthfully, "long sojourn on the hot plains factor") make the night cold feel more like Finland than Thailand. These cool days and chilly nights, combined with the spectacular mountain views, have earned Doi Angkhang its popular English sobriquet, "Thailand's Little Switzerland".

The road to Doi Angkhang branches west off the main Chiang Dao-Fang highway just before the village of Chai Prakan, 138 kms or about three hours comfortable driving from Chiang Mai. For the first few kilometres the newly surfaced road crosses the fertile Farng Valley, before climbing steeply into the range which straddles the Thai-Burma frontier.

After about 10 kilometres the steep, closely serried ranks of hills give way to a narrow valley set in high, rolling country. Here hard-working migrants from nearby China have planted great orchards of lamyai trees. Their tidy mud-and-wattle houses - with nary a stilt to be seen - evoke the atmosphere of rural Yunnan, as do the neat piles of firewood, scurrying kai dam or "black chickens", and the rosy cheeks of the people. Here, too, groups of wandering Hill People - usually Lahu or Akha - may be seen, stolidly making their way down the flanks of the mountain to the plains around Farng with loads of local produce, or climbing back again burdened with simple consumer goods such as matches and cooking oil.

After winding through this narrow valley, the road suddenly begins to climb again - only this time more steeply. Spiralling through the surrounding hills, many of which show the tell-tale scars of slash-and-burn agriculture, the narrow strip of tarmac constantly doubles and redoubles on itself in a series of tight hairpin bends, often skirting hair-raising drops.

Eventually, after a long, steep stretch, the track reaches an isolated border police box. Here the road divides, one track leading south towards the hill village of Tam Ngop, the other down into the basin from which Doi Angkhang derives its name - literally, in northern dialect, "Basin Mountain". Back behind the visitor lies the long drop to the Farng Valley and Thailand. Directly in front, only a couple of kilometres away, stretch rows of mist-covered, pristine hills in Burma's Shan State. And below, in the shallow basin - Doi Angkhang township and the Royal Angkhang Station.

Lahu ladies selling bracelets

Angkhang township is a tiny, unhurried settlement inhabited chiefly by Yunnanese Chinese known locally as Haw, various hill peoples including, especially, Lahu and Akha, and of course numbers of Tai Yai or Shans from across the nearby Burmese border. The officials - mainly soldiers and border police - are all Thai, and the shopkeepers Yunnanese Chinese. It's a quiet place, where little happens. Should the visitor wish to stay here, comfortable and quality accommodation is available at the newly established Angkhang Nature Resort.

Overshadowing the tiny township, and taking up the greater part of the fertile hill-top basin, is the Royal Angkhang Station. Here, as at nearby Doi Tung and various other upcountry hill stations in the north, a Royal Project sponsors an experimental plant-breeding station specialising in the propagation of temperate fruit and vegetables - notably strawberries, peaches and pears. These and other cash crops are designed to provide an alternate means of living for hill peoples whose livelihood has traditionally been dependent on opium cultivation. Visitors can stroll around the station and watch as rosy-cheeked sao doi, or local hill girls tend the fragile shoots with their dextrous fingers.

Nowadays, despite the steep and somewhat trying nature of the road to the summit of Doi Angkhang, the distant valley is securely tied in to the economy of Chiang Mai Province and to the Thai polity. In the not-too-distant past, however, Angkhang - like Mae Aw in Mae Hong Son Province, or Ban Hin Taek in Chiang Rai Province, was something of a no-man's land, known best by the hill peoples of the region and to the itinerant guerrilla armies and drug traders who haunt the border regions of Shan State.

Today pick-up trucks carry goods to the top of the mountain, and the Chinese Muslim "supermarket" in the heart of the township receives regular supplies of Mekhong whisky, mama noodles, Krong Thip cigarettes and copies of the Thai papers. Yet signs of Burma's proximity are everywhere as well, from bundles of green cheroots through Burmese pin-up girls on calendars to kyat currency notes - the latter much despised and almost worthless in Angkhang itself. These goods do not enter Thailand by pick-up, but in panniers strapped to the wooden saddles of Yunnanese mules, the time-honoured transport of the border region. Though fewer in number, these sturdy little animals can still be seen resting in shady spots around the township. They look harmless enough, but visitors should be warned - they don't like to be photographed, and will kick or bite at the slightest provocation!

Unfortunately, another Burmese import Doi Angkhang and indeed all Thailand could do without comes in through these hills. Opium and - especially - opium derivatives such as No. 3 and No. 4 heroin are widely available, and have a continuing, terrible impact on some of the local hill people. Border Police checkpoints exist at various points in and around the hill station, but questions of corruption aside, it is easy to see that this border cannot easily be policed. AIDS, too, as in many hill tribe communities, is a growing problem.

Of course, these problems will not easily be banished. Still, the Royal Angkhang Project provides hope for the future, and the promise of a better way of life for the people of the uplands.

For the visitor, by contrast, Doi Angkhang offers beauty and tranquillity, a chance to commune with nature, and an escape from the heat and dust of the plains. As the surfaced road is completed and access to Angkhang becomes easier, the number of visitors will doubtless increase. This may detract from the pristine, isolated feel associated with the hill station at present, but with any luck tourism should also provide the hill people with an additional source of income and a chance to improve their standard of living.

At least, that is what the people of "basin mountain" most hope!