hiking

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..

Doi Inthanon National park - Pha Dok Sieo trail

The previous post in this series is here..

We drove to the Doi Inthanon Park sign where we had to pay token money to the local village people. They usually have a village lady accompany tourists on the walk to the village. We spent an hour walking through the forest on the Pha Dok Sieo trail crossing multiple waterfalls on the way and learning a lot of things about the forest and the village we were visiting.

The village was again inhabited by folks who originally came from Burma. They cultivated coffee (originally Heroin which was discontinued by government and switched to coffee) and rice.

Our guide was a lady from the village. She explained everything on the long hike and Joy translated where reqiured. It was a pleasant day and we thoroughly enjoyed the hike. It ended in the village where we met a very old lady operating a loom to make scarves. We sat at a cafe and had bananas and San managed to get a coffee (made from local beans) and it was time to walk to the car and drive to our next stop.

While we walked to the car, we met a 106 year old grandma who was so sweet. She could not hear at all, but she asked San to sit next to her to take photos and spread the tarp for her. We were truly touched by this grandma. She had three kids, the oldest son was 86 and the youngest daughter was 66. We met the daughter. Apparently grandma had a tough life in Burma.

Here are the pictures..

Landscape mode photos.. we learned about stingless bees, plants that can confuse fish and make them drunk, jumping snakes, and a lot of forest facts..

and a video highlights reel..

We said bye to the village and moved to stop 3 for the day..

Sunrise from a hill top in Cambodia - Phnom Bakheng

The previous post in this series is here.. We are now in Day 5, our third day in Cambodia.

Sarak offered to take us back to Angkor Wat for Sunrise on our last day given my previous time lapse attempt was a dud. However he said that the sunrise from the hill facing Angkor Wat at Phnom Bakheng will be really beautiful. Only thing is that we have to walk in pitch darkness with iPhones as flashlights for a good 25 minutes at 4:30 in the morning to go up 3 km to the temple.

San was ready to drop and started suggesting I do the sunrise and come back to the hotel to wake her up. This was going to be a once in a lifetime opportunity. Less crowds. Sunrise.. beautiful sunrise.. so I pestered her to join me. Made chai for her at 3:45 AM as an incentive.

She was glad she came and I was just so happy we got to be there together. The photo below was not edited. The sun flare on my yoga shirt happens on the iPhone because of a spec of dust in the lens…. we did get a lot of yoga photos as well.. Saruk encouraged me to do Yoga here and was taking his photography to another level..

We waited a good 30 minutes for the horizon to start brightening. The stars in the sky put on a display as there was no light pollution in the area!

We walked up, got a timelapse as well (it is part of the video highlights reel). it was chilly in the morning and both of us had a cold. We were up and active all thanks to Tylenol. When we came down after the sunrise we saw the temple from the base, a nandi that was still intact and the descriptive boards that we couldn’t read in the darkness earlier.

The video highlights reel including the timelapse of the sunrise..

After this we were dropped back at the hotel. We were to have breakfast, check out and meet our driver back at 8:45AM. We were to see two more temples on the way to the airport….