June 13,

We did not have anymore rain last night, but I woke up at 0215! I was not able to but about one hour’s worth of sleep. I guess I was all caught up!(shaking head emoji) We finally got around, having our Javas. Then went down for breakfast. We told the lady about the leakage last evening. There was a man here(her husband?), on crutches as he has one leg only. She was explaining to him all we’d said. It’s the first time we’ve seen him. We also saw the worker girl and an older woman. They may all be family, not sure. None of them seem to speak English, or at least don’t relate with clients. Anyway, we had our breakfasts – I made myself a waffle and Jeff had fried eggs. Today we were served mango, dragon fruit, pineapple, and watermelon, no rambutan.

We then readied and set out in our car. We set a course for Phu Chi Fah. A vlogger we follow, Paddy Doyle, had recommended this area. Paddy’s adventures have not steered us wrong, so off we go. It’s basically a two hour drive, only 56 miles. Most of the way is a big two to three lane divided highway that was nice, but not that busy. It seemed like an over done roadway. We weren’t complaining, just wondering why. We saw lots of rice paddies here, that were being worked. Then we came to the mountains, and we turned off the road to the last bit of our drive – a steep, 8-14% incline up to and along a ridge. This was where the drive slowed down. Some parts were so unrelenting up I wondered if our little car was gonna make it! We were crawling up!! We did make it though. We arrived at the town of Phu Chi Fah. It was a quiet little village. But the vistas… undeniably “next level”, as Paddy called them. We did see many “glamping” resorts dotting the areas.

We loaded back into our car and found the turn out for the Phu Chi Fa National Park and took the road up to the parking area. We got out and the parking attendant told one km to hike up to viewing area. So we went up! The first part was along road that has been blocked off – that ended at a newly built parking area with newly constructed buildings, not finished completely. This is all new since Paddy’s video of this place. Now the way up became a natural, slippery trail because it’s moss covered. We finally arrived at the viewpoint – it’s a massive jut out, with a marker on the border of Thailand and Laos. Technically we are in Laos up here, but there is no border checkpoint because the only way here is from the Thai side. Anyway, the main reason to come here the views! You can see valleys to rolling hills to mountains, all covered in so many shades of light to deep green with sprinkling of color spots where buildings were. Beautiful! The air was so clear, but dappled with clouds and sometimes misty as the clouds were ever changing. One minute was sunny the next was wispy, light cloud layers creeping up the mountainside engulfing us and our view. It was amazing! God’s handiwork on display!!

We left as we were pushing our luck on rain and we were hungry. Back in our car we stopped on the edge of town at Phu Chee Fah Coffee for lunch. We both had Ginger Chicken Stir-fried with rice, and two 500 bottles of water, and small bottle of lemon juice. The whole meal cost us only 150 THB, but ended up giving 160 THB because they didn't have proper change. That amounted to just under five dollars – as in $4.94 – a very local price.

Now we drove back to Chiang Rai. Jeff took a different way down out of the mountains and the road was pretty small because the vegetation of the forest was growing unchallenged and overtaking road, sometimes it became only one lane, driving on the middle line. There were constant “sharp curve” “squiggle arrow” signs, because, well that's what we did. Sneaking down, Jeff had to put the car into low gear quite a bit. We passed a number of rubber tree plantations, some corn fields “eeked” out on slopes that I would have never thought for farmland. We noted a lot of “slippages” in the road, where the road has cracked and moved some 4-5 inches! I was glad once we were down off that road!

We happened upon cool waterfall, just on the side of the road. We had to flip a U turn to go back. We found the parking and paid the 30 THB (93 cents) to park our car. We crossed the road to get closer. There was bridge to cross a stream to get really close but the flooding in 2024 rendered the bridge twisted and unusable. That was a sight – don’t mess with mother nature! There were signs about the flooding and signs warning of “poisonous” insects, then we saw a large tree that was filled with huge wasp’s nests. But we continued, because it was a great-looking waterfall, called Phu Sang. It was like a Hollywood movie setting, set back in vegetation with a “flowing-esque” seeming rock coming down like stalactites with the fall of the water flowing over this onto a mound of more rock. What a fun, cool waterfall.

Then we loaded up and continued back, passing many rice paddies as the area was flatter. Then we arrived in Chiang Rai and stopped at a Super Big C. Shopping stuff in hand we next stopped at a couple of vendors at a evening food court, getting papaya salad and some meat sticks for supper. Great day around Chiang Rai.