We visited Doi Inthanon twice --once on our own and once with a tour group. Sounds odd, but there was very little overlap, and both trips were good.
First we went on our own. It is a good example of independent travel. Some things work out well, some don't. You miss a few things that the tour guide would point out, and you find a few that he wouldn't. You take more time, partly so that you can spend more time on things you particularly like, and partly because you are less efficient than the guide.
We arrived at the park in the afternoon. To enter a National Park costs a foreigner 200 Baht, and a Thai 20 Baht. The Pass is supposed to be good for five days. When we entered the Park, the ranger insisted that we will have to pay 200 Baht for each day we are in the park. That means camping in the tent will be several times more expensive than our typical hotels! We pay for the first day, and will pay the rest when we exit.
Next, we spent several hours trying to find the campground. The park officials were not very helpful, and directed us to pitch our tent behind the food vendors, along with the park workers who didn't get cabins. The guidebooks, the Thai website, and everything previously seemed to say there was a campground at the Park Headquarters at milepost 31. We spent the night behind the food vendors with the park workers.
The next morning, we resumed the search for the proper campground. The fifth park official that we asked told us where it was (just one kilometer away, off a side road). We headed over and found a great place to camp. Flat tent sites, toilets, and showers. In fact, the Thais sweep the campground, removing every pine needle!
It rained most of the day, so we pretty much stayed around camp. We were told that the rain was artificial-induced to help during the dry weather. But since the temperature also dropped below 50 F (10 C), we are pretty sure it was just an un-seasonal weather storm. We got an extra blanket from the park service (we left most of our stuff in Chiang Mai and made this an ultra-light backpacking trip).
Near the end of the day, we ventured out to see the hill tribe villages. We were very hesitant to just barge in. This is their village, and we do not know the customs. Since there is an English sign "Silk Weaving" we know that they welcome foreign visitors, but with no common language, we just walked through the village, smiling and nodding but with no real contact, and do not find the silk store. One man, eating rice in a group of men, might have motioned to us to join him, but we weren't really sure and just smiled and continued. We were a bit bummed, since we expected to find at least a few places we could connect. Then we ran into Noom, a Thai working in the village. He had lived in Seattle during high school, and had flawless English. He quickly became our "guide" and we headed off to his place.
Noom and five Thai students (all girls) are working with the government to assist the villagers, and conduct research. For example, in the evening, they go visit the households and interview them to understand them better. The day is getting late, so we arrange to meet tomorrow for a hike. The students have the day off. Noom thinks he might be able to get a villager to guide us on a short trek.
The next morning, the cousin of the headman is ready to take us into the jungle. He speaks Thai, and Noom serves as a translator.
I had tried previously to find detailed maps of the area so that we could hike it. We figured we would probably hire a guide anyway, but I like to have a map. Once we were in the jungle, I could see why there aren't any maps. The jungle is full of trails, all heading out in different directions. The villagers have fields of rice or vegetables in many different areas and trails connect them. There are also trails to other villages. With so many different trails, it would be impossible to navigate without a guide.
The guide explains many of the plants and trees along the way, showing which are used to relieve headache, upset stomach, etc. Some are used to neutralize poisons. We also see some that we know, such as ginger!
The most amazing part is when the guide hears a bird. He immediately pulls out his thick book "Birds of Thailand", flips to the index, zips to the correct page, and shows us the picture. Rufus bulbot. Greater Bulbot. He is able to identify birds precisely from their call. In fact, we never actually see any of them! But the pictures in the book were of remarkable colorful birds! We had a great day, hiked with a bunch of new friends, and had a guide who knew more about the jungle than any from a package tour.
Next we visited the peak of the mountain. It is the highest place in Thailand at about 2600 meters (8000 feet), if I recall correctly. Near the top is a rain forest, below that a pine forest, and below that a monsoon (deciduous) rain forest. Each zone has quite a variety of plants and trees, except for the pine forest, which is a bit plainer. Given the hot weather, the higher zones are more pleasant both because they are cooler and shadier.
We would have just stayed in Doi Inthanon on our own for a few more days, except that we were due to leave Thailand. So, we headed back to Chiang Mai, extended the visa and deferred the airplane travel. We planned to return to Doi Inthanon on our own, and then take a guided tour to other areas that are more difficult to reach on your own. But when we started looking at the tours, we found that the tour to Doi Inthanon hit many areas that hadn't, and didn't duplicate anything we had done. We found a tour that was mostly hiking (ten hours over three days), with just a touch of the tourist stuff (an hour elephant ride, two hour bamboo raft ride) so that we could experience it.
The tour group of eight people included us, two Canadian women (Sophie and Sheree), a couple from London (Ben and Zara), a Japanese woman (Erico) and an Israeli-French woman (Nathalie), along with the guide (Wijak). We were able to swap many stories, since several of us were on extended trips.
Hiking in jungle was both enjoyable and frustrating. The National Parks are still evolving for Thailand, and are not very well protected. In particular, the Thai seem to burn everything in February and March. In the cities, every pile of leaves is raked up and burned. In rural areas, the fields are all burned. In the forest, the crop areas are burned. New areas are cleared and burned. The thick smoke blankets the entire north country. It is so strong that even though this is the peak of the tourist season (due to dry weather before the highest heat of April-June), I would recommend against visiting the north at this time of year. It would be better to come in November-January.
The frustrating part was seeing the forest burn. Thailand continues to lose jungle rapidly, and is down to just 25% at this point. The culture of both the hill tribes and the Thais is to burn everything, so change is not happening. We could hike through enough really beautiful jungle to know what it used to be like, but also through so much cleared land that it was a bit depressing. It is not like India, where the land is cleared to support a billion people, and the land is used efficiently. Here, there are large areas just used for a year or two and then abandoned while another is cleared. Sad.
The elephant ride is fun. I didn't realize how slow they are! They are quite powerful, and were important in logging, but they are very lumbering (pun). I think we might have gone 500 meters (0.3 mile) in an hour! Well, now we can say we rode on elephants. And we are glad we didn't pick a tour with several hours on top of one!
The bamboo rafts are quite fun also. They are just assembled from bamboo poles, and poled down the stream. At the bottom, the raft is cut apart and the poles hauled back to the top. Our group included three rafts, of which two hold together. One (not ours) began to loosen, and soon a few key poles were really just floating along with the others, no longer part of the raft. When the people step down on the loose poles, they just step down into the river. Slowly, the whole raft begins to get lower in the water. By the time they finish, they seem to come from it as if they are walking on water!
We didn't expect to get into the touristy bamboo raft and elephant ride, so we selected a trek that was mostly hiking (10 hours), and briefly did the other things so that we could experience them. It was just right.
The trek logistics were okay, but not great. The guide does this trek over and over again, and seemed more interested in getting it done that in enjoying it. One woman in the group went at a quite slow pace, due to short legs and poor shoes. Rather than trying to help her, he just marched the group onward. We fell back, helped fix her broken pack strap, offload some weight, and give her better traction on the downhill stretches. Fran twisted her ankle on the second day, and the guide didn't even notice. She hiked on it for 2.5 hours in to camp. I'd highly recommend the trek, but not the guide.
We finished the visit to the park at some beautiful waterfalls, resting our feet in the cool stream. Ahh...
