Chiang Mai (Northern Thailand) Tourist Guide


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Chiang Dao National Park
- Two Trips to Remember

Text & Images: Steve Finch

To be cynical about Thailand's supposedly protected national parks is no difficult thing. Koh Samet National Park, for example, which charges farang 300 baht to enter, is a beautiful island on the Gulf of Thailand strewn with huge piles of rotting rubbish.

Up north, thankfully, the situation is better.

Chiang Mai Province is blessed with 13 such parks - more than any other Thai province - that are mostly unspoiled. Chiang Dao National Park, in particular, is very accessible from Chiang Mai city and one of the most intriguing natural reserves in the region.

Wedged between the town of Chiang Dao and the Myanmar border, the park is a kaleidoscope of peoples, scattered over a huge cluster of sub-2,000-metre mountains through which flows the Ping River on its way down to Chiang Mai.

Getting to the park entrance from here in the Northern Capital takes two hours by car or motorbike past Chiang Dao and onto the 1178 Road, along which the park entrance is sign-posted on the left. Foreign visitors are charged 200 baht, which is enforced in and around the facilities and sights at the park entrance. Sri Sang Warn waterfall dominates this area, gushing down a potted ravine lined with clusters of bamboo and larger deciduous trees creating a sheltered canopy that opens out at a camping ground, one of two sites at which visitors can pitch a tent.

During my first visit to the park on the very last day of 2006, I decided against staying here, instead opting to get out into the wilderness to see in the New Year. I then continued driving 20km north along the 1178, past an army checkpoint and towards Muang Na village close to the Myanmar border.

The tourist highlight of this quiet little village is a series of caves beside a monastery. The entrance to Chaeng Pa Hok Cave takes visitors down some stone steps into the main cavern which houses a small Buddhist shrine partially bathed with light escaping in from the outside. Exploring the eerie back section, which narrows into a tiny corner, requires a strong flashlight and at least a minor sense of adventure.

Leaving my car parked in the village, I then set off north towards the border with a few supplies - including a bottle of whisky, a tent and a compass ready to begin 2007 looking out over Thailand's hilly north.

After walking two hours, the dim December light was beginning to fade as I neared the top of a hill with spectacular views of the village below and the surrounding area. There was only one problem - attempting to pitch my tent, I realised that the terrain was too rocky. The pins meant for holding the guide ropes in place would not be driven into the hard ground, meaning I would have to brave the cold and sleep on top of the tent.

Unperturbed, I built a fire, cooked up some instant noodles and baked beans and retrieved the whisky from my backpack as I settled in for the New Year.

By 11pm, fireworks began sporadically shooting into the night sky, lighting up the village and the surrounding hills in reds and greens. The distant sound of what seemed like gunfire added to the din that reverberated around the valley below.

That night was spent desperately trying to keep warm. I managed to get little more than and hour's sleep before deciding to light a fire in preparation for the first dawn of 2007.

South face Doi Chiang Dao

At about 6:30am, the sun began edging over the horizon, penetrating the low blanket of mist and turning the sky a deep red. By the time I had cooked up another packet of instant pasta for breakfast, the sky had already lightened in colour, red turning to orange, and eventually bright blue. Feeling tired, I packed up my equipment and headed back down the mountain and along a dirt track, past the turning to the caves.

Thankfully the walk down was considerably easier, although disaster soon struck when I went to retrieve the car keys from my pocket, which somehow squirmed out of my weary hands, onto the ground and through a vent in the drainage channel that flowed down the road. Just when images of a long-drawn-out New Year's Day catastrophe began to play out in my mind, I realised it was possible to get into the duct, bent double to retrieve the keys, which I managed to do after a considerably uncomfortable and dirty five minutes scrabbling around in the half darkness.

Feeling filthy as well as tired, I drove back down the road, past the park entrance, to Pong Arng hot spring, a sulphur-smelly natural pool as popular with the locals as it is with tourists. After a brief stint in the warm water, which is naturally heated to between 58 and 64 degrees Celsius, it was time to head home and see out the rest of New Year's as no doubt many others in Chiang Mai had - in bed.

Perhaps as a result of the problems that marred my first trip, I ditched the tent and opted for a motorbike to make another visit to the park, setting off early one morning at the end of February. This time I followed the 1322 Road along the southern perimeter of Chiang Dao National Park in a bid to see some of the areas I had missed the previous time.

The road heads east, cutting up, down and around steep climbs and sharp drops and occasionally passing through hill tribe villages set among some of the most stunning scenery I had witnessed in Thailand. Haze hung over certain stretches, a sign of the burning that sends clouds of smoke into the country's northern skies as each and every community prepares for the planting season, burning away scrubland ahead of the April rains.

After nearly two hours and 77km of winding roads I came to the town of Piang Luang at the very northwestern end of the park, which marks the dividing line with Myanmar and the scene of a recent tragedy for the peoples on both sides of the divide.

Morning mist

After receiving directions to the frontier, I was surprised to see a dilapidated border gate that had been shuttered and become overgrown. Faded signs at the border gate gave instructions detailing the necessary rules on crossing to the other side in Thai, Myanmar and English. The border, however, was no longer open and, peering through the gate, I saw what looked like landmines protruding from the ground.

Walking up a path to the left-hand side, I came to a simple, golden Buddhist pagoda and adjacent, an information board on the current status of the border. Among the only literature in English was an article by The Chiang Mai Mail explaining exactly what had happened here.

Previously, the Myanmar and Thai communities on each side of the fence had been able to mix freely at the pagoda which was actually built on two hills, the one I was standing on and just the other side of a steep gulley, another temple building that had been taken over by the Myanmar military and turned into a fortress.

Following a battle with the rebel Shan State Army in 2002, the Myanmar Army had seized the other half of the temple complex and laid landmines around the area in a bid to stop the insurgents from coming back. The people on both sides of the border - who consider themselves part of the same Tai-Shan ethnic group and share the same language - were no longer allowed to cross and meet freely. The temple and its community had been split in two.

I walked along the path that used to link both sides, an area that had become a no-man's land a couple of metres wide at the most, marked by a pit of sharp bamboo spikes on the Myanmar side and a sandbagged garrison on the Thai-controlled section. I was immediately ushered away by the Thai officer on duty, despite the apparent humour and surprising lack of concern on the part of the Myanmar soldiers who giggled as I walked away from their heavily-fortified camp. It was time to move on.

After a late lunch of Shan noodles in Piang Luang town, I took the west-to-east road that cuts through the heart of the park, heading back to the village where I had overseen the end of 2006. Following the turning out of the nearby village of Chong, the tarmac road turned into a bumpy stretch of pebbles and dust that slowed me down considerably.

After 30 minutes, the fact I seemed to be making little progress was made worse by the realisation that my fuel gauge was beginning to hit the red. I soon found myself ignoring the beautiful scenery and instead routinely glancing to see how much petrol I had left, which was quickly evaporating as the bike struggled up twisty, bumping climbs. My concern was growing amid the realisation that I might not make it to the next settlement of any size, Kae Noi, my only chance of finding fuel in what is one of the most remote sections of the park.

I failed to be able to communicate with a passing cattle herder; same too with a lorry struggling on in the other direction. The only settlement within the first hour was completely devoid of people and vehicles and therefore most probably fuel too.

As the road turned from cobbled track to tarmac road and back again, I began to fear the prospect of another shelterless, winter's night in Chiang Dao National Park, when I noticed a large settlement in the distance. Thankfully, after ten minutes I had reached Kae Noi and one of its glorious petrol pumps.

A further hour of ups and downs, tarmac and pebbles brought me round to where I started my first exploration of the park, at Muang Na village, two months previously. As I zoomed through the town, watching out for the spot I had so nearly parted ways with my car keys, the sun began to set to dusk, the occasional roar of bright fire burning the scrub on the road, lighting up the fading sky.

A couple of trips to remember, wouldn't you say.