June 8,

Again we both awoke feeling refreshed with another good night’s sleep. It is truly amazing that this gets your mood and general well being right for the day. What a blessing. Anyway, we were up and about having our Javas. We decided to do our own breakfasts – yesterday we went to a store and found some muesli – so we had this with yogurt and one of the juices the hotel provided for us. The juice is purple carrot juice! We were skeptical, to say in the least, but actually we like it – even quite pleased with it. It was very surprising! When we finished we decided to go out and explore more of the area around Phayao.

We loaded up into our Yaris. Having programmed in our phone where we were going, we plugged the phone into the car and up popped the map on the car’s console. Technology! We are heading to Phrae which is mostly south and a bit east. Our destination is almost 150 km, which is only around 91 miles, but Google says its couple of hours. But that’s okay as we have no time restraints. We enjoyed the drive, and I think Jeff is enjoying driving. I pulled out the big paper map we have to get the overall picture of lay of the land.

We arrived at our first destination, Phae Mueang Phi Forest Park. We paid the entrance fee of 100 THB each for foreigners (there was supposed to be a fee for our car but we weren’t charged it). The wonder in this park is the “Sao-Din or posts of soil” caused by water/rain and wind eroding some parts of the soil, more than other parts – according to placards as we enter. Then we arrived to the attraction or what is left. Columns or other shapes of naturally carved sandstone with toppers of dark brown or black colored edging. In a way they reminded us of Bryce Canyon’s Hoodoos. The placards (paraphrased) tell about a local legend. Of a lady foraging for food in the forest and coming upon gold and silver. She loaded up some on a rail, but angels protecting the bounty disoriented her, making her lost. So she had to leave the bounty and then was only able to get back to her village. She told her story and some villagers tried to find her left bounty, but instead only found her footprints that lead to a coffin, not the bounty. So the place was named “Phae”- meaning forest, and “Mueang Phi”- meaning City of Ghosts. Anyway, the area of these natural formations was quite small – 30 meters wide by 100 meters long, or 98” X 328” – and very unique, but we didn’t see any gold or silver or ghosts!😂🤣  It is open to walk all around them, and the only signage around here, reads: Do not climb. It surprised us that any formations still remained because of how crumbly the sandstone was. Then we could see in the banks surrounding how the pillars may come about and evolve over time. It was interesting.

We walked all about the unusual sandstone pillars and then hiked along a trail that was elevated around the formations and lead us through some forest back to our car. Along the trail there were placards describing the park and flora/fauna in it. We were hoping to see some wildlife, but all we saw was some yellow-orange caterpillars with three black stripes, a couple of black gecko-type lizards, and of course spiderwebs – without their spider makers, thankfully. We made it to the entrance/main parking area and tried to see the Exhibition Center but it was closed, so we left the national park and went on to our next stop.

Now we drove to the Doi Phu Nang National Park. Driving in and around the countryside in Thailand has been so beautiful and refreshing: seeing locals working the land with some flat rice paddies or terraced fields on the mountains; viewing the local wood houses on stilts; and then seeing the natural forests and mountains untouched. Anyway we were enjoying all of it.

We arrived at this National Park. We had a waterfall in mind, but another one also had signage. So we tried to go to it first. We followed the signage to a very small, barely one lane road. But as we drove the vegetation was overtaking the way in and started scraping the car a bit. Jeff stopped and I got out to check it out as we were very close. I found where the road ended with a path. But this lead to a wooden bridge that was missing boards and very rotten looking. I was not willing cross, and I could not see or hear a waterfall. So… this was a FAIL. Jeff had to do a five point turn to turn the car around as I directed him.

We resumed to the waterfall we had first planned to go to. It was way more promising. It had an actual road all the way to a fee booth and a parking area. We paid the 100 THB each ($3.06 each) and 30 THB for the car ($0.92) to enter Than Sawan Waterfall. While Jeff was waiting for them to make change, I got out and noticed a really cool tree, a Sompong Tree. I only saw it because it was cool! Twisted roots that branched up almost six feet to then form the actual tree. I took a picture of the placard without reading it, but Jeff came over and read it. At the bottom of the sign it read: “Believed that…husband and wife or teenagers love each other when hold hand and walk together under the Sompong tree will be a partner stay happy forever.” So he grabbed my hand and we walked under it! How romantic is that!!

Anyway now we walked the easy trail to the awaited waterfall and were rewarded for our perseverance. It was a glorious waterfall, maybe a twenty foot drop in a way wider ark that has been separated into two distinct section by vegetation growing up on the ledge. There was also a huge dead tree that has fallen onto that ledge and will just have to naturally be broken down, because of it’s sheer size. Anyway, we had the place to ourselves for a good ten minutes and got our pictures. The water is supposed to be emerald green, but it is a very brown muddy color, due to it being rainy season and carrying dirt run-off from higher up the river. You can swim here, but we weren’t interested in a mud bath!🤣

We left and loaded back into our car. As we were leaving we saw the Green Peafowl, very similar to what we call Peacocks, except they are more green obviously. Yeah, to finally seeing some wildlife!!! We drove back keeping our eyes open to any other sightings, but no such luck.

We talked with my mother and her husband on a WhatsApp video, and then with our church back home did a Zoom chat. What a blessed day!