Today we planned to go to Doi Inthanon National Park, home of the highest peak in Thailand, nature trails run by the Hmong and Karen Hill Tribe people, multiple waterfalls, as well as the King and Queen Pagodas near the summit.
Doi Inthanon is about a 2 hour drive from Chiang Mai. At the bottom of the canyon there is a ticket booth where we had to pay an entrance fee of $300 baht per adult, $150 baht for kids, plus $30 baht because we had a car.
Just a warning (true for most places in Thailand): you have to use cash everywhere! Airports & some 7-11’s are the only places we’ve been able to use a credit card. So, always load your wallet with Baht before you head out in the morning– you never know when surprise expenses are going to crop up.
We drove up the canyon to the summit at Kew Mae Pan Nature Trail (3.1km loop). You have to sign in at the trailhead and hire a Hmong native guide to take you on the hike. This will be $200 baht cash at the end. The hike takes approximately 2 hours round trip and no food is allowed. Just a warning for people hiking with kids— give them a meal or snack before you start!
Trail information that we read online said that this trail is for beginners, but you should be able to do some stairs. We’ll clarify that…. You should be able to do A LOT of stairs with some hiking. The trail is well marked and has wooden stairs on every incline or decline. It’s a lot of incline and decline. Every new flight of stairs we started laughing and saying “there are some stairs on this trail… Ha!”
At one point I said “My legs are sore from yesterday (Monk’s Trail & Doi Suthep stairs).” NixiRay said “My entire is sore” and gestured to her whole body.
Our guide was a young girl who spoke no English, except “Take Photo”. She led us at a fast pace up the mountain to the viewpoint, then followed us at our pace on the way down. She probably saw my red face at the top and figured out that not everyone climbs 679 stairs (no I didn’t count) in an hour every day multiple times.
It was a beautiful clear day which gave us great views of Northern Thailand from the overlook platforms. Lots of trees, farms, and little villages in the valleys down below. Surprisingly, very few animals in the area– few birds that stayed hidden, no monkeys much to Spud’s dismay.
Another viewpoint gave us a look at the King and Queen Pagodas. We’ve seen so many temples in the last few days that we decided not to stop in since the view from the trail was great.
Spud was dancing around being so funny, but every time I pulled out the camera he would hurry to sit down and give me this look. Funny boy!
The original plan was to also hike the Pha Dok Siew trail to the waterfall (run by the Karen Tribe for $300 baht), but the online info said this one had lots of stairs… We felt like we had done enough stairs for the day on the “some stairs” trail and the kids protested doing another hike. We opted to drive down the canyon and find lunch and any other views or waterfalls along the way.
We stopped at two roadside restaurants (actually quite large and look like they accommodate all of the tour busses) – but the food was all seafood or unrecognizable. We weren’t feeling that brave today. Instead we stopped at a fruit stand and bought some apples and ate some snacks we had with us.
We took a side road towards the Dean Sa Ngop farm to see some of the Hill Tribe farming and cherry blossoms (Thai Sakura). Beautiful trees and incredible farming on the hillsides. (Yes, there are stray dogs everywhere!)
On the way down the mountain we spotted a roadsign with English subtitles pointing out a waterfall {Watchirathan Waterfall} , so we followed the arrows and are so glad we did, because it was amazing! The whole Klang river flows over a cliff. Also, there was a little restaurant with traditional Thai street food, so we finally got to eat lunch!
You know you’ve been in Thailand for awhile when you’re looking at a little roadside restaurant with cheap tables and chairs and the corrugated metal roof falling off the open air kitchen and you think it looks like a pretty nice place to eat. But hey, this one had the benefit of having the roar of the waterfall in the background and some nice trees to look at. Spoiler alert: the food wasn’t great. Haha.
Spud & Littlest loved getting sprayed by the waterfall and got so hyper and wanted to see everything!! We had to reign them in a little bit around the other tourists and in the muddy areas. We did catch a few tourists sneaking pictures of the kids. They are cute, haha.
Superman asked two monks for a picture too.
The original plan was to drive and see the Mae Ya Waterfall too- but the only way to get to it is to go to the bottom of the canyon and then drive 30 minutes up the next canyon over. We decided that one waterfall today was plenty and headed back to Chiang Mai instead. It was time to pack up our suitcases and get ready to move on to Part 2 of our trip: Bangkok!
