Photo Trip Report: Camping Thailand's Northwest

[buksida]

I did a lot of camping when young, anything to get out of the city. I also took our kids camping often. But somehow not having pine trees around kind of stops me from going out.

The 'camping window' (when its nice to sleep outside in a tent) in Thailand is pretty short, essentially from mid to late November until the end of January or mid-Feb. Over the past month, we did 17 days in a tent in 9 different provinces, gotta be a record even for us!

The rest of the year is either unbreathable air, hotter than Satan's crack, or torrential downpour season.

[buksida]

After a solid night’s sleep, it was time to decamp and head to ‘Chong Yen,’ a campsite at a peak over 1,300 meters high in the Mae Wong National Park that has become very popular with Thai netizens, vloggers and the recently spawned generation of nouveau riche campers.

Places that are hard to get to, such as this, need to be booked in advance with the National Parks Authority. But the Thai government being what it is, this is not easy and involves a Kafkaesque procedure of navigation, form filling, booking, and provision of ID details through the state website, which barely functions, seemingly being designed in the 1990s. It also wanted us to physically go to the state bank to pay the 60 baht fee and get receipts and more paperwork – this was out of the question.

We drove to the park, not knowing whether we could ascend to the campsite. Being a weekday, we were permitted up following more paperwork, form filling, ticketing, payment of camping fees, and enthusiastic stamping by park officials (Thailand is still very military). We were also advised to buy a spray for the persistent sandflies that were up the mountain but this turned out to be a placebo as I still got bitten.

The road up to the summit was surprisingly good but the tiny campsite was extremely popular and soon filled up with campers seeking the cooler climes. The woman at the miniature coffee shop told us that as many as 200 people sardine into this small triangle of grass at the summit during peak periods – there were about 15 tents there during our stay.

There is also a new generation of Thai YouTubers and Tiktokers that video, narrate, and post absolutely everything they see on social media. This adds to the popularity of these places and detracts from their attraction at the same time as they become overcrowded with more YouTubers and Tiktokers. The Insta-selfie crowd was also busy preening and posing, some of them oblivious to the cooler temperatures judging by how little they were wearing.

In addition to the social media freaks were several twitchers – bird-watching enthusiasts with serious camera gear and birdsong apps trying to capture the rarer species that live up here.

To follow: Chong Yen

[Green Nomad]

Thanks Buksida, good advice. I buy my lenses from B&H in New York, shipping and delivery to Saudi very easy, unless you have any suggestions?

[buksida]

If you're flying via Japan, you can pick up cheap camera gear there, as much as 30% less than Thai prices for the same kit.

[Big Boy]

I've learnt something today - I didn't realise sandflies frequented anything other than beaches. IMHO their bites are the most irritating of the lot.

[PeteC]

I've learnt something today - I didn't realise sandflies frequented anything other than beaches. IMHO their bites are the most irritating of the lot.

They can also cause a version of that flesh eating disease. They can really do a lot of damage if they are infected. Look up: "Sandfly Disease (Leishmaniasis)" for more details.

[buksida]

Right, I was scratching for a fortnight after getting bitten.

[Lost]

Amazing looking trip, Buksi! Something along these lines will be very first on my list when I get back out there. Incredible views! Thanks for sharing.

[buksida]

A half-kilometer climb to the summit of Phu Sawan, 1,427 meters above sea level, rewarded us with a stunning sunset that evening.

There were no dogs at this campsite, but we did encounter a pair of wild porcupines that made their rounds of the site after dark, searching for food and opportunistic thievery of bags left outside of tents (pictures from the phone so not good).

Sleeping in close proximity to a bunch of other tents didn’t come easily (Thais are generally pretty noisy), especially after the previous peaceful places we’d camped at. Temperatures dropping to 14 degrees didn’t help, so we were up at sunrise and on the road down the mountain to head south again to the next campsite at Ban Rai in Uthai Thani province.

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To follow: Ban Rai

[STEVE G]

You learn something everyday, I never knew that porcupines were native to Thailand!

[pharvey]

You learn something everyday, I never knew that porcupines were native to Thailand!

Saw them for a pastime growing up in Africa and many whilst working in various corners of the US - never got to see them in China, just overpopulated, concreted or polluted where I had to work or live unfortunately!

Big populations around the world - and many extremes.

Cracking photo's as usual Buks - Truly some wonderful sights..... I even think I could handle those ridiculously low temperatures you've experienced!!

[STEVE G]

^I've never seen a porcupine outside of a zoo, or a TV nature documentary.
I've spent quite a bit of time in Issan but never saw one there, the locals had probably eaten them all!

[pharvey]

^I've never seen a porcupine outside of a zoo, or a TV nature documentary.
I've spent quite a bit of time in Issan but never saw one there, the locals had probably eaten them all!

Perhaps I exaggerated somewhat...Saw many in Africa and saw a fair few working in the US (the latter in truly out of the way places). The Porcupines in Africa are huge buggers, 20kg plus - so somewhat larger than in the photo's above, the ones we saw in the US much the same as Buks has shown - God knows what they ate though, we were miles from anywhere and literally an hour's drive to get back to our beds/water/electricity at times.

Issan Locals? The only thing left by Chinese would be disposable chopsticks, but saying that the dear LHG has managed to curb such tastes for many years now..

In some respects, I wish I could find some photos to compare, then again ..... "Pure Desolation vs Pure Nature"

[buksida]

Ban Rai is a quaint little town in the hills in western Uthai Thani province and this was to be our next location. Named after the owner’s pet, the Owl Yard campsite was a pristinely kept spot, clearly aimed at Bangkok glampers with power sockets at each pitch, trolleys available to cart the gear from their shiny SUVs to the camping spot, and meticulously kept gardens and toilet facilities.

When Thais go camping, it’s all about the food rather than the surroundings, with most of them bringing entire kitchens with them and constantly cooking and eating though the waft from sizzling barbeques was quite pleasant. We had a relaxing evening camping at this spot where, like many private campsites, they have connections with a local restaurant that will deliver food.

To follow: Suan Pheung

[Big Boy]

Taking you back to Page 2 of this report, you visited a botanical garden near Uthai Thani.

I was due to go to Uthai Thani with the footie yesterday, and the trip included a visit to the same botanical garden (I was looking forward to it after your report) - I couldn't go because of a hospital appointment.

Every report I've read about the botanical garden yesterday talks about horrendous road conditions to get there. Every report says that if they had realised how bad the roads were, they would not have bothered. However, nobody has said what made the roads horrendous.

Did you find the same problem visiting the garden, or was it something specific to yesterday please?