Phukradueng National Park

The tour de Isaan continues. After spending a night in Sakon Nakhon, followed by 3 days in Udon Thani, I made my way west though Nong Bau Lam Phu – the province where I spent the best part of a year living in a rural Thai village. It was great to return as it has been 3 years since I last visited, and it was great to see nothing has changed. The market is still alive and well, the smiles on the locals faces were beaming and the trees on both sides on the main road were as green as ever.

Next stop is Loei, where I stayed for one night before making my way over to Phukradueng National Park, which is home to Thailand’s second tallest mountain. I have visited Phukadung mountain about 3 years ago, and as with Nong Bau Lam Phu, it was great to see not much has changed.

Let’s let the images do the talking, and I’ll add notes where needed.

The third stop, out of 11, on-route to the top of the mountain. Here defo had the best views of the sourounding area.

Climbing conditions were a mix of steps like these, stones, earth and laders!

And slopes like this one.

You can pay 15b per kilo for someone to carry your stuff up to the top. On the way up (and on the way down), you’ll see both men and women with supplies or people’s belongings strapped onto a bamboo poll.

These guys must be seriously strong… and a little insane.

I’m not sure if these twigs were here to prevent the huge rock from falling down the mountain.

I made it to the top. I think I did it in 4 hours (or was it 3?)

The views from the top were absolutley stunning!

This is where we collected our bags.

This is the club house where you can arrange a tent, blankets and sleeping bags. Tents went for 225b per night (already set up), pillos and other gear went for 20 to 40b per night. Our bill come to 800b for 2 nights, due to spalshing out on blankets.

Our tent!

Feeling hungry? Here we have sweet spuds, BBQ’d eggs and sticky rice wrapped in bannana leaves. Yum!

I love this destert and it’s sold everywhere on Phukradueng mountain. It’s basically ice shavings with syrope and condensed milk on top. Under the ice are jelly-like pieces of Lychee.

Most of the things ontop of the mountain can be seen in one day, either by hiring a bike (350b per day) or walking. We hired some bikes and went off exploring the waterfalls, cliffs and pond before making our way over to the east side of the platue to see the sunset.

Everyone getting ready for the sun to go down.

Watching the sunset was defo the highlight of the trip for me.

Up at 6am due to noise. With coffee done with, we started making our way back down the mountain!