National park

The Ang Ka trail to highest point in Thailand

The previous post in this series is here..

After going on the trail to the village, Goy had already got the car to the trail exit. We hopped in and went to another parking spot. Here we were to go on the Ang Ka trail to see the forest inside the top of a volcanic crater. We also got to see the highest point in Thailand which was within this park. There was a memorial for the king who used to hunt wild elephants in this park near this spot.

The whole ecosystem with walking birds, a spongy moss that releases water in a controlled way to form streams at the top, moss covered trees, a beautiful walkway with clear explanations.. loved it.

There is a Ho Chih Minh rain forest trail in Washington State in Olympic national park. This must be close to the original.. similar trees but different ecosystem because of the ground moss..

Here are the pictures..

A video highlights reel..

There were a. couple of vista points from which you could see the mountain ranges and clouds. We were ready to go to the next spot within the park. We also told Joy and Goy that we had lunch thanks to lefover breakfast and the to go we packed from Raj Dharbar the night before. We ate in the van while they also had their packed lunch. Then we drove slowly through the vista point areas while I clicked photos from the open window. It was chilly and we did not want to make the cold worse.

We were on to our next and last stop within the park..

Wachiratan falls with three rainbows

The previous post in this series about our thanksgiving trip is here..

We started day 7 with a long drive.. but first we had some logistic trouble. Given the dip in falls and other hiking sessions that involved a lot of sweating, I was clearly out of clothes. The hotel laundry service was minimum 5 days out. Thankfully Joy and Goy knew a laundry service nearby. So we went and dropped our clothes there and they told the owner to drop the clothes back at our hotel if possible. They were nice and agreed to do so before 6PM. After this brief stop, we had to drive close to 2 hours to Do Inthanon national park. We told Joy we were happy his wife was joining us. He told us that she will not be hiking with us. Apparently the hike starts in one place and ends in another. So she will drive the car to the other lot and wait for us there to save time.

We went through the gum tree road.. where the trees are 150 years old to exit Chiang Mai city area. Once we reached the National park, our first stop was Wachiratan waterfalls. I was like a little kid. San promptly told Joy about her brave and stupid husbands escapades in Camodia a few days ago. Joy looked at me and diplomatically said we should go see the falls on our own and come back. He have us 30 minutes. We got a lot of yoga pictures as well…

Here are some landscape photos as well. Taking steady shots to get the long exposure was not easy with the hand with the wind. Enjoyed the falls thoroughly.. We did get wet and were worried about making the cold worse. Then again, we were on an adventure and were not going to miss out on anything!

A video highlights reel..

Our next stop was a drive away to do a hike from the park guide stop to the village..

Revisiting Bryce canyon after 20+ years

The previous post in this series is here..

The first plan was to start driving from Zion at 4 AM to see sunrise at Bryce. By majority vote (everyone except me that is), this plan was vetoed, torpedoed and buried faster than I could explain. So we left at 6:30 AM and drove to Bryce. It was a beautiful drive with the windows down for the most part.

We parked our car at the store and started hiking from there. The trail to sunrise point is close by. We went through sunrise point, the Navajo trail to Queen Victoria, then came back through the Two Bridges, a little steep but shorter. We ended up at sunset point. From there we walked to the Bryce lodge and had a nice lunch. We were the second group waiting in line to be seated. We had to wait for 15 minutes and they opened promptly at 11:30. We had finished lunch and were out of the gift store by 12:30. There was still time to add one more stop to our trip and still make it to Las Vegas airport in time. So we walked fast from the lodge to the store and I made a dash for the next stop.

This is is pretty much everything we got from the morning at Bryce.. the memories of the smiling faces.. priceless!

The nature galleries..

Portait format photos.. I clicked a lot more but these are the highlights.. as for why I am smiling so much, Angels landing. has been on the bucket list for a long long long time. So I was just feeling so happy!

A video highlight of the Bryce experience..

The pictures here do not do justice to the scenic beauty of Bryce canyon. If you go to Zion, don’t miss Bryce.