It's really freaking COLD!!!

February 7 - 9

After a few days in Chiang Mai, we were ready to move on to greener pastures. I think we all enjoyed the ‘Rose of the North’ but it was time to go and Laura’s mother’s trip was almost up. Our original plan was to end the trip with Sukothai, which much like Ayutthaya, that we had visited before has many ruins of an ancient kingdom. This is actually known as the first kingdom of Thailand even though it started roughly about the same time as Ayutthaya. It does get less visitors as it is further from Bangkok and less accessible but we had heard that it was nicer, with more intact structures since it was not destroyed in an attack, and also that it was in a much more forested landscape. This was our plan but when we started to weigh things: we would have to take a long bus ride there and then another long bus ride the day before Kathy flew out and the fact that we were a bit watted out, we decided against it.

Then Casey started to read more about Doi Inthanon National Park and it not only being beautiful but also a birder’s dream come true. He has become a bit obsessed with birding lately, you see. From reading a bit up on the park, it seemed like the best way to visit it was by renting a vehicle and low and behold we were in Chiang Mai where they rent lots of vehicles for reasonable prices. So we decided to go for it even though it had been awhile since we had driven and on the left side of the road and using a stick with your left hand no less. This is always a fun idea especially when starting off in the busy city of Chiang Mai with crazy Thai drivers (although I may have been the craziest one out there). We actually had the car the day before we left for Doi Inthanon and used it to visit Doi Suthep and the national park near there which made for a gorgeous but bumpy day transversing dirt roads. Luckily we had our cute little beat up Suziki 4WD to navigate.

You Did What? Sorry, I Left the Door Unlocked.

So Casey was very excited about our plan to visit Doi Inthanon and could hardly sleep thinking about all the birds that we might see. The night before leaving we had to do laundry and came back late and Casey, after living in the Philippines for two years and forgetting that people are not always so innocent and nice, forgot to lock the door. Well it turns out that was not such a good idea and when he awoke in the morning to look for Laura’s purse to get some money to buy food to take on the trip, he could not find it. Laura was sure it had to be there but it was not and we soon realized after tearing the room apart that it was not there. Someone had come in the evening while we were asleep and evidently snatched the purse along with our passports and Laura’s credit cards which were inside. Luckily they did not grab the camera which was also very close to the door. Kind of scary that someone came in while we were sleeping and glad nothing worse happened. So lesson learned by Casey: lock the door, especially in a large city.

So we told the front desk and asked if they could call the police. They responded by saying, “oh maybe you should look in your room for the purse.” I love service in SE Asia. So understanding, fast and efficient. We tried to make them realize that we were pretty sure it was not there and eventually we did get in touch with the tourist police (these are found in every major tourist town in Thailand). They came and were nice enough and we told them what had happened and how Casey had stupidly not locked the door. The worst thing was not so much the money or even the credit cards but the fact that our passports were in there. We had been good for the first few months about separating them but we had needed them recently and Laura had just left them in her purse as we all get lazy and had not had any problems. We were worried about getting new passports from the embassy and then also having to deal with Thai immigration. This was not a good start to the morning and Casey was pissed because it meant no birding.

So we told the sorry to the cops and then for some reason Casey decided to check outside the room again. We had looked in some of the trash cans but then Casey remembered there was a little alleyway to the right of our room and sure enough the purse had been thrown under a bush there. They had taken the money (about $140 worth) but the credit cards and the important passports were still there which we were extremely thrilled about. The cops were a little confused by this but they soon understood what had happened and then we went with them to make a statement at the station. We learned that they had caught someone in the area who had done similar things in other nearby hotels and they thought that she had done the same to us. So we then went to the real cops to make another statement so the tourist cops could actually do a real investigation. I do not understand how this system works and what qualifies you for a tourist cop or a real cop but whatever. There had been a video camera in our hotel so the tourist police needed our statement to look at this video and see if they had the thief on tape. We never heard the end of it but hopefully they caught the perpertrator. So we left for Doi Inthanon in the early afternoon a few thousand Baht poorer and a bit more wary.

Finally Back to the Birding Adventure
We got in our little Suziki and headed the hour and a half to Doi Inthanon. Doi in northern Thai means mountain and this is no little mountain. It is the highest in Thailand and at around over 9,000 feet (2,655m), it is nearly 1000 feet higher than any other mountain in the country. The elevation range within the park is fairly spectacular and as a result of this you get many different ecosystem types and also a wide variety of associated plants and wildlife (especially birds). There are a number of endemic species in the park (mostly at the highest elevations) and other species which are found other places in the world but only in this park in Thailand. Also because this mountain is so high it gets pretty damn cold and we had come at pretty much the coldest time of the year. We were certainly in for a chilling experience.

At the gates of the park there is a gorgeous waterfall, Mae Klang, which is formed by a beautiful rushing river which runs right past the visitor’s center. We soon found out that there are many waterfalls in Doi Inthanon and all of the ones that we visited were pretty spectacular. I do not think that I have ever been to a place that has packed so many wonderful waterfalls per area. Many of the falls run all year and almost all of them are multiple tiered. This is certainly one thing we have noticed about Thailand: the multi-tiered waterfall. Brochures will often proclaim that a park has stats like this: three waterfalls, one having seven tiers while another has thirteen and another three. What exactly makes up a tier and how spread out can they be to be considered a tier. In one park you had to hike a kilometer between tiers. Is this really a tier or a totally separate waterfall? I am just waiting for the 127-tiered waterfall. Now then I will really be impressed.

After viewing these falls, we stopped quickly at the visitor’s center for a map and then began heading up the mountain. At the base of the mountain everything was brown, dry and hot but as we slowly headed up and up the vegetation got greener and the air got cooler. It took us about 30 minutes or more before we finally reached headquarters and where we found a small cottage right nearby to stay in. The temperature was incredibly pleasant and there were birds twitching in the parking lot. Casey decided to head over to Mr. Daeng’s, a little restaurant that he had heard about where birders go to get info on birding, while Laura and Kathy just rested and enjoyed the pleasant surroundings.


In the early evening Casey and Laura went to go see if the could find a special bird, an endangered crake, near a marshy area of the campground. We sat and waited for awhile but nothing showed up and we learned later that they have not been seen there in years. However while waiting for the bird we were met by a small group of Hmong (one of the hill tribes in this region of SE Asia) children with bunches of flowers. These kids were intent on making their sale and came up to us muttering 5 Baht, 5 Baht. We continually said no but they had no desire to leave us alone. Then one of them had a bright idea. Maybe 5 Baht is too low. We will try 10 Baht, 10 Baht, 10 Baht. We found this quite amusing but still would not budge on our position. The kids would also not budge on their wanting to offload these flowers. I assume their parents had sent them out to sell those flowers, hell or high water. So they came up with the best idea, “free, free, free" and tried to hand them to us. We still did not really want them and were expecting if we did take them they would then demand money. So we again said no. But they started to lay the flowers at our feet and then began to runoff without any payment. We thought it quite odd, a bit annoying for the first 10 minutes but by the end, an interesting and cute ending to our day.


The next morning we had decided to get up in time for the sunrise. When we awoke and got out from underneath our heavy blankets we realized just how cold it was. It was nearly freezing and for two people who have not been in the cold for three years, this is quite stifling. Casey did a bit better with the cold in the next two days but Laura’s thin blood had a little trouble handling it. We loaded in the car with our 5 layers of clothes, gloves and hats and even brought the blankets with us. Then we slowly made our way up the mountain in our low powered car and by the time we had reached the top the sun had already risen but we got the nice view of the early light.

We were in fact the second folks at the top and we slowly got out of the car, bared the cold and made our way to the nature trail. On the top of the mountain there is a unique mossy forest and also a bog environment found nowhere else in Thailand. This is the place that many people come, especially birders to see this special environment and the rare birds that live here. We were one of the first ones here but soon birders began to come in groups and make the boardwalk in the bog a bit crowded. I was surprised to find that most of the birders were not foreigners and in fact we were the only Westerners that I saw up here. While watching the bog we got a view of many of the species that people come here to see (the beautiful Green and Mrs. Guold’s Sunbird, Chesnut Headed Minla and Chesnut Capped Laughing thrush to name a few) and we were extremely delighted. It was a bit cold and our feet froze in the morning (there was even frost on the boardwalk), but no harm done. The mossy forest here really was quite beautiful and it was worth getting here early in the morning to catch the first sights of the special birds here.

We actually decided to stay here longer than expected and did not realize that we had spent the whole morning until we got back to the car. Our next stop was a spot where two cheddis or stupas have been built, of course to honor the King and Queen. We decided to make a quick detour here as we had heard the gardens were nice and there might be some birds here as well. What we did not expect was them charging us more money to enter this area. We reluctantly handed over our Baht but complained a little bit to the guard although it is not his fault. Our only issue was that we had already paid a large entrance fee to get into the park. It really is quite high for foreigners (about $12 which is not that much but is more than many national parks in the States). Now when you consider the fact that you are in Thailand and things should be cheaper than in the States and also consider that Thais only pay 1/10 of that price, it is a bit high. I am certainly willing to pay more than Thais but I do hold a bit of an issue with paying that much more, especially knowing that it is highly unlikely that much of it is going to conservation but instead is being used to line someone’s pockets. But hopefully I am wrong and am just too cynical. Well anyway the gardens were nice and it was a good way to spend the not really good birding hours of midday.

After this we headed down to a group of waterfalls near Mae La that we had heard were nice and hoped to find a few birds. This area actually turned out to be a highlight for our birding in the park and we saw a number of things we did not expect. Upon arriving at one of the falls we quickly found a Slaty-Backed Forktail, a Blue Whistling Thrush, A Plumbous Tailed Redstart and a gorgeous River Chat. The first falls were nice and high and then we hiked up the road to see another group that was very nearby. These falls were even more impressive with nearly 2,486 tiers (not quite but they were highly tiered). One our way hiking back to the car from here, we saw the bird of the day and probably the trip, a nice Long-Tailed Broadbill, what we think is a Small Niltava (pictured here) and also what we think was a flock of Mrs. Gould’s Sunbirds.

Once we got back to the car we saw another sign for a waterfall and decided to see where it was. We ended up going for quite a while on a dirt road and never saw the waterfall. We think we did however go outside of the park and into the outskirts of the nearby town. It was entirely different landscape with hardly any trees and very dry and brown again. Amazing what a difference the forest makes. But it was quite beautiful in its own right with very large rice terraces, that were beautiful now but I am sure are absolutely spectacular during the green, wet season. They reminded us of other terraces of Northern Philippines and Southern Sulawesi. This was an unexpected side trip but another very nice way to end the day. While we were here we even saw an amazing Black Shouldered Kite as it hovered in the air looking for its prey.

The next morning we rose again early to get some more birding in. We tried to head to one of the suggested birding spots and although we heard a lot of birds, many of them were high in the canopy and the forest was pretty dense here. We are still novice birders and this was a bit difficult for us so we decided to head to another spot that was supposed to be easier to locate birds. We walked around at this spot for a few hours and saw a few things: a nice woodpecker and some shrike babblers and parrotbills. Overall the morning was not as fruitful as the day before but nice nonetheless.

We headed back in the later morning to our lodging to pack up and then headed over to the Royal Project Area near headquarters. The King and Queen have assisted with a number of projects in the park it seems in order to help the local hill tribe population that calls this park home. There are about 3,000 Hmong and Karen that live within the park boundaries and in the past one of their major forms of livelihood was growing opium. In order to curb this, the King has introduced a number of projects in the area including cut flowers which are sold throughout Thailand (much like the ones which were pawned off on us by those cute but pesky kids the first evening). So we decided to check out the gardens and while nothing spectacular it made for an interesting enough walk and we were able to get a view of some of the green houses used for the flowers and vegetable production. We also headed over to the Royal Gardens which was a beautifully landscaped area at the foot of another huge waterfall. It is weird to have landscaping and whole communities inside a national park but it is what it is.


After our stroll in the gardens, we had a nice lunch and started to head down the mountain. But first we went to the nice market near headquarters where many of the Hmong residents of the park were selling a variety of products, ranging from the cut flowers to handicrafts to preserved fruit. Along the way down the mountain, we hit up two more gorgeous waterfalls and eventually got back to the dry, hot lowlands. We planned to then go to another waterfall outside of the park (supposedly one of the highest in Thailand) but got detoured by a Buddhist procession and caught in the traffic caused by it for awhile. So we nixed the waterfall and just headed back to Chiang Mai having been content with our lovely, cold time at Doi.