Our trail of North Thailand: A road trip

Our trail of North Thailand : A Road trip

Although there is no reason to consider ourselves as trailblazers by any means, we decided to set our trail of north Thailand this December 2022. Abijit visited us in December 2022 for 20 days and we wanted to spend some good time together now that all four us were around. While deliberating about how we could spend quality time as a family, Jayachandran brought forth the idea of a road trip. Thus began our preparations for the trip about a month before we finally started on dec 23rd. Jay and me sat together and made our bookings for hotels to stay in the 4 places that we intended to stop over and go, around a month before we set off.

Thailand is divided into six land regions - Northern region , South, East, West, North east and Central region. Our idea was to literally make a round trip to the northern region through the central region. While going we decided to stop over at Sukhothai city of the central region, reach Chiang mai and Chiang Rai of the northern region stay put there for 2 nights each and then travel south ward to reach Bangkok through Phetchabun of central region.

The route taken with total distance travelled including the detour being 2619 kms 

Map of Thailand showing how it sits and its borders

  After a good check up of the vehicle that we set forth on, a sedan BMW 320 series and a cheerful bright mood ahead of the trip we were ready to get on the trip.      

Day 1
We started at around 8 am from home. Our destination: Sukhothai. Sukhothai is an ancient capital city of the Sukhothai kingdom, a place of historical  significance.

Jay all set to take the trip head and heart on ! 

Googling for places we could visit enroute from Bangkok to Sukhothai we chanced on the Nakhon Sawan observatory center. This observatory is located on a small hilltop. It has a pagoda named prachulanmanee along with the observatory center on the hilltop. From the hilltop we could see the confluence of two rivers- ping and nan to form the chao phraya river . Chaophraya flows through Bangkok before joining the gulf of Thailand. We spent some time on the hilltop sighting the confluence of the rivers and offering our prayers at the pagoda.

Prachulanmanee Pagoda

Children and me offering prayers at the pagoda


 

Abijit and Abiram at the Nakhon sawan pagoda and observatory center, with the origin of Chaophraya river in the back ground 

We had our first stop for food at a local country hotel, for lunch, a simple thatched roofed retaurant by the highway.After some struggle to communicate with the lady in the motel we got our food. We enjoyed it. 

At the wayside motel for lunch

We reached our stay for the next 2 days in Sukhothai at around 3 pm. We stayed at Sriwilai Resort. We were offered a warm welcome at the reception with a butterfly pea flower drink. After refreshing and relaxing a bit at the hotel we went around the peripheries of Sukhothai historical park and visited Wat traphanthang at the historical park. There was a huge footprint of Buddha at the wat. 

Foot print of Buddha

At the entrance to the central zone of Sukhothai Historical park 

Wat Traphanthang

Sriwilai Resort , Sukhothai

Day 2

We had not decided what places to see in the forenoon before going to the sukothai historical park in the afternoon. The historical park is lit up in the evening and so we thought to stay back in the evening for the light show. Children came up with idea of visiting the holy heart land and ramkhamhaeng national park, taking advice from Google, before getting to the historical park in the evening. So, we headed off to holy heart land, the first visit of the day. Holy heart land is an island inside an artificial lake. The lake is in the shape of a heart and so is the island inside it. The island has a Buddha temple in the middle and has lot of flowers in its garden. May be it's the trees , flowers and water around, we could hear lots of birds chirping away in the island. We exited quickly from the island to get to Ramkhamhaeng national park which is around 40kms away where we wanted to do some trekking.

We reached the Ramkhaemhaeng national park around 11:30 am. After parking the car at the base we started the trek up. We saw some campers in tents at the base. The total trekking distance up is 4 kms. We thought we will do atleast one km. The trek up brought out my mental and physical limitations. I was so down unable to get to the one km mark and decided to stop at the 0.8 km mark. I just couldn't put myself together to go up despite jayachandran and children trying their level best to get me going. So jayachandran and me started going down with children deciding to trek for some more time up. The trekking trail is so steep and also has some loose boulders making it dangerous and taxing. I am glad it's over and pat myself for attempting to hike up. Children covered 1.3 kms and thought that it was good I decided to turn back after 0.8km as it was even more dangerous and steeper after that. 

                                                    The loose boulders on the hiking trail 

Me after having given up 

The struggle to hike up !

Abiram at the 1.3 Km mark up the mountain

                                                

At the entrance to the park

                                             

The last visit for the day was the Sukhothai historical park. The historical park is a huge area covering about 29,000 acres. We in fact stayed inside the historical park but the central zone of the park has some ruins and Buddhist temples which are quite beautiful in serene surroundings. The Sukhothai kingdom existed in the 13 -14 th century. Sukhothai which means dawn of happiness is in the northern part of present central Thailand. Gathered some little gyaan about the Sukhothai culture from the museum inside the central zone of the park. The museum had some lifestyle exhibits of people who lived in the Sukhothai area those days - their pottery, textiles, farming methods , clothes and so on. Buddha in teh subduing mara posture was the most common exhibit. Buddha uses a mudra to subdue a demon called mara and that is the meditative posture that is usually seen.

Sukhothai historical park

Sukhothai historical park at night 

Day 3

Day's Destination: Chiang Mai
After our two night stay at Sukothai we moved to Chiang Mai . Chiang Mai is around 700 kms north of Bangkok located in a mountainous region. It used to be the capital of Lanna kingdom in the 12-15 th century time period. We started at around 8 am from Sukothai and reached Chiang Mai at around 2:30 pm. We made two stopovers enroute. The first one was at a small sheep farm by the road side and the second was an ancient wat phra that lampang luang. This wat was built in the 14 th century .The central stupa and the temple structure are made of teak wood. It's the oldest standing wooden structure in Thailand. People lined up and picked incense sticks, candles , orchids or lotus buds from the entrance and voluntarily deposited money of their liking into a donation box. They circumambulated around the temple prayed and made their offerings of candle lighting or flowers. There was  particularly more number of senior elders visiting the temple today. Wonder if it is the peculiarity of the day or if it is a usual sight in that temple. Another interesting ritual noticed in the temple was that we found skinned trunks of trees with some thing written on it ( looked more like names or addresses of people who made some kind of supplication) supporting a big peepul (aal) tree in the courtyard. The skinned trunks had forked ends which are used to support the spread out branches of the peepul tree. 

Wat Phra that lampang Luang

Prayers and offerings at the wat

All through the journey we found that there were cafe amazon or inthanin at the fuel pumping stations with well maintained wash rooms. Thailand does take care of its tourists well. 

Inthanin at a fuel station

Chiang Mai though the third largest city in Thailand looks like a small spread one with no high rise buildings. We toured the old city and visited wats in the area. Wat chedi luang is the biggest one in the area almost 300 ft high with the peculiarity of not allowing women inside the prayer area. 

Wat Chedi luang

 It was a coincidence that being a Sunday the walking street was on in the evening. It's a night street market about one km long selling stuff like clothes, handicrafts , paintings, food and souvenirs.

 We had some difficulty locating a dining place for dinner and had to go around the city, going in circles not able to find parking space. Finally after a drive around for nearly an hour we found a restaurant where the food didn't taste that great. But it was a quiet place by the riverside with live music.

Day 4
We travelled around 150 kms away from Chiang Mai to a small hill town called Pai. This is in North West Thailand closer to Burma. Although not so deeper research about the place was done we were ready to venture out. The memorial bridge built in world war 2 by the Japanese to transport weapons to Burma was the first visit today. 

The world war II memorial bridge

The hot springs site was the second one. We didn't want to enter the main hot springs site as none of us were  prepared to swim and so we just settled with seeing a small spring outside the main spring campus. 

At Thai pai hot springs entrance 

The white Buddha was the next stop. It's a big white Buddha on top of a mountain. Half way up the mountain we could drive but then about 350 steps up we had to climb. We caught some glimpses of good views from the top.

Wat Phra that Mae Yen - Yen means white 

At the base of the white Buddha mountain we had lunch at a place called earth tone. True to its name the place was earthly. Though from outside the place looked like a small shack, looks like it's visited mostly by back packers, people doing soul searching experiences and the like. There were some posters of retreats , meditations and higher consciousness talks on their walls. It's a vegetarian hotel and had an interesting menu of herbal teas and the usual Thai food. Khao soi ( noodles  in soupy coconut milk with some Thai spices ) is the staple diet of North thailanders unlike rest of Thailand. 

Inside the earth tone reataurant

Khao Soi 

 Driving on a low floor sedan also comes with its limitations on uneven Rocky difficult motorable roads. We kept that in mind and decided we wouldn't steer too much away from the main roads. The final stop of the day was at bamboo bridge. It's a 800 m long raised bamboo bridge on a rice plantation in the foothills. 

Bamboo bridge

Our stay at Chiang mai was comfortable. We stayed at the pingnakorn river side hotel. The hotel is by the side of the river Ping which goes down south and becomes Chaophraya at Nakhon Sawan by joining the river Nam,

Hotel at Chiang Mai 

 We moved to Chiang Rai the next day morning after the second night stay at Chiang mai.

Day 5

We travelled to Chiang Rai and had the next 2 nights stay there. Took it easy in Chiang rai and took time time to relax without much travel. The hot springs on the way from Chiang Mai to Chiang Rai was a good sight. The temperature of the water of this spring is claimed to be around 85 degrees Celsius. There are egg vendors selling raw eggs by the spring, which could be boiled in the water. There are fumes coming out of the springs and the surroundings smells of sulphur. There are many hot springs and geysers in this area of Chiang Rai and Chiang Mai provinces.  

Hot springs

We took a small detour in our route to Chiang rai from Chiang Mai and visited Mae Suai dam. It's a relatively small dam built recently (2002) for irrigation purposes. The air and stillness about the place was soothening. There is a wooden house floating in the dam. It is motored and was seen moving through the dam. The landscape from the view point of the dam was too good. The dam looked like a pond nestling between the mountains. 

The spillway at Mae Suai Dam

Mae Suai Dam

 Just at the entrance to Chiang Rai town is the white temple. The white temple also known as wat rong khun is a privately owned structure built in a Buddhist temple style opened to public in 1997. Though the outside is white the inside of the temple has colourful fiery pictures of dragons , Power rangers, transformers , super man ,angry birds and other modern myths adorning the wall. Both Abijit and Abiram were amused seeing them. 

White temple 

In the evening we took a stroll in the Chiang Rai town. The night bazaar was on. It's like our mall food court. There are street food shop all around the central dining area with music playing. 

Chiang Rai Night bazaar 

There was a light show at the clock tower in the centre of the town for 5 minutes. There was some Thai music and the lights on the clock tower that kept changing colours.

Main road in Chiang Rai old town 

The Clock tower in the middle of the town

Day 6

Sites visited :
Singha park- Jayachandran, Abiram and Abijit went on a zip line in the park. This park is a 3,400 acres farm with tea and rubber plantations. There are flower gardens too. The butterfly pea flower garden is one of the stops on the bus that took us around the farm. Butterfly pea is a purple colour flower and is used to make a herbal drink.

Blue temple- This temple is a new one, opened to public  in 2016. Built in Thai Buddhist style. There was an old wat about 100 years old at the site which was renovated into the blue temple.

Blue temple

Blue temple 

Black house museum- has digital art , collections of an artist who is the founder of the place. Collections includes animal bones, crocodile skin, python skin. Everything is in black colour. I didn't get a good feeling after visiting the place.

Black house museum 

Black House museum 

Wat huay pla kang- Chinese goddess of mercy , Guan yin. The statue of the goddess is 26 storeys tall. There is a lift inside the statue. By the side of the statue is a 9 tiered Pagoda. This place is built in Chinese Buddhist style.

Goddess of Mercy

We stayed at The Legend river side resort and the stay was pleasant.

Day 7

Earlier in the morning before we started our return South ward we took a trip to the golden triangle. We did not go deeper into the the triangle but still had a glimpse of the mountains that forms a part of it. Golden triangle region is where three countries borders meet - Thailand, Laos, Myanmar. It's an area where one of the largest production of opium and heroin in the world takes place. Now many places in the Thailand side of the triangle have shut down but many places in Myanmar and Laos still cultivate opium. This makes north Thailand a notorious place from where drug trafficking takes place to the rest of the world. It was eerie to read that it's from Bangkok airport that many drug couriers traffic to different parts of the world. 

Golden triangle region 

We were on the road for nearly 10 hours at a stretch and reached phetchabun which is a town in the northern part of Central Thailand. We explored phetchabun as much as we could before heading back home the day after tomorrow.

Day 8

Phetchabun - Switzerland of Thailand
This province has mountains with grass slopes and valleys making it resemble Switzerland and hence named the Switzerland of Thailand. There are number of national parks in this province. Nam nao national park appealed to Jayachandran. It is about 70 kms away from the place we stay. I am so glad we made it to that park. The forest bathing we had by taking the 1 km nature trail was energising and a pleasant experience. There is a creek in the nature trail and it forms a stream which is the source for a river. The trail is some times crossed by Elephants and we sighted some elephant dungs on the trail.

Nature trail at Nam Nao national park

Nam Nao national park

The wat phra that sorn kaew was a very crowded place. It took us almost an hour inching on to get to the wat. There were so many cars lined up to get to the wat. There were so many people in the wat who all looked like serious devotees and not tourists. All the sign posts at the temple were in Thai and Abiji-Abiram were into Google translation of some important ones. The Huge Buddha at the wat looked special with 5 versions ranging from a smaller buddha to a huge one in one single piece.

Wat Phra that sorn kaew with the Five in one Buddha 

The pagoda at the wat

A small skywalk was the next stop. It has a glass floor and we could see the mountains on the side. Not a very impressive one.

Jayachandran at the skywalk

Wound up the day by visiting a resort which has a nice garden. The lavender coloured delphinium flowers lining a mountain slope was a beautiful sight.

Blue sky resort 

Delphinium flowers 

Sunset at Khao kho valley resort 

Saw the sun going down in the valley from the place we stayed.

Day 9

Had a list of 5 places to see on the fianl day of the trip . 2 on the way back home and 3 within phetchabun province. The wind mill farm on a flat topped mountain mesa was the first one to go down on the list. There are 24 wind mills and it is a 60 MW project. It provides clean energy enough to power around 36,000 households. The place has a flower farm and park. It was crowded. It is remarkable to see how tourism is promoted in Thailand by creating something out of nothing.

The Wind mill farm

Lining the roada in most of the khao kho area of phetchabun are strawberry farms on th emountain slopes and road side shops selling strawberry.

A starwberry farm on the roadside with a flower garden along

Strawberry for sale

The Khao kho palace environs has a scenic view point and a pine forest.

Abiram finally smiles for a pic at Khao kho palace pine forest.

The Phetchabun buddhist park has a big black Buddha statue and lot of Buddhas inside the prayer hall.

Sithep historical park is a well maintained one. There aren't many ruins but there is a electric vehicle to take visitors around the park. Sithep is an area where  excavations of prehistoric origins have been made. The ruins are of the Khmer kingdom of the 9 th - 11 th century time period and almost 1000 years old.

Sithep Historical Park

Abijit and Abiram before a ruin

Dharma Chakra at one of the ruins in Sithep historical park

The final stop was at the sun flower field in Saraburi province. A good place for some photography.

Sun flower farm

Jayachandran relaxing and stretching himself towards the fag end of our trip ...

We got back home safe and happy with the universe in our favour yet another time and i am deeply grateful for the grace. I am sure all of us have freshened our selves up , broadened our horizons through increased understandings, seen the world outside home, been with nature, had new experiences different from the routine mundane life and so on. It was a travel done in a gradual manner in a peaceful pace, meeting our expectations most of the time. Thanks for lasting the account of this trip. It was my pleasure doing it. Happy New year 2023💜