Pu Chi Fa

5:30 am

It was dark, and a cool mountain breeze was blowing lightly across the quiet, sleeping village. Pinky and I stood in front of the guesthouse waiting. Yesterday afternoon, we had arranged with the owners to drive us to the peak of Pu Chi Fah, a steep 5km ride to the Forest Park, to watch the sunrise over the famous sea of fog. But last night the owners of the little family-run guesthouse had a family party. They were kind of noisy, and I'm sure that they were drinking, and this morning, it seemed as if they had forgotten us.

I was mad. We had worked so hard to get here, and it had taken a lot of time, money, and effort to make our way up to this village, and the only reason we had even come here was to see the peak. We wandered through the empty village, but there was nobody about. Finally, we decided to do what everyone had told us was impossible: we were going to climb Pu Chi Fah in the dark. We began to walk. We had come this far, and I refused to give up, even if we were going to have to do the trek on foot.

our goal: Pu Chi Fah

 5:45

We began to climb. At first, it wasn't so bad, but the road grew steeper and steeper, and after only five minutes, we were both out of breath and struggling. This was a lot harder than I had expected! The road was really steep! In the dark, it was a little scary when the occasional car would pass us on the narrow winding road, heading up to the peak.

6:25

It was getting light when we finally reached the entrance to the Pu Chi Fah Forest Park. I had long ago taken off my jacket and tied it around my waist. The air was cool, but I was sweating like crazy! I hasn't expected to have to exercise like this today, and I was only wearing my sandals!

The park officer stopped on his motorbike and asked if we were exercising. No, we told him, our hotel forgot about us. He laughed and tried to encourage us, telling us that we only had another kilometer to go.

6:45

We finally arrived at the parking lot. Exhausted, though it was still early in the morning, I downed a bottle of water and bought a small cup of hot coffee at the little market.

This was it! Our long journey was over! Or so we thought...

It turned out that there was yet another kilometer to climb from the parking lot, this time up a slippery and even steeper muddy path on the edge of the mountain. It was kind of  scary! The mud was slick and it felt like I was going to slip and fall down the mountain to the valley far below!

But finally, there it was: Pu Chi Fah, "The Mountain that Points to the Sky", up ahead in front of us! We had done it!

7:00

The views from the parking lot to  the peak were incredible! Stretching out before us were the most wild mountainous regions of the region. Pu Chi Fah is right on the Thailand-Laos border, and we were looking out over the rugged Lao countryside.

And there was the famous Sea of Fog! Even though we may have missed the actual sunrise, the early dawn glow and the Sea of Fog made our trek worth it. 

It was even more special for having walked the whole way; it felt like we really earned our view.

As we reached the peak, the fog rolled in, thicker than before, covering the mountain and wrapping all around us.

 

Pu Chi Fah is sort of a hidden gem in northern Thailand. It's kind of hard to get to, and while it's popular with Thai tourists, not a lot of foreigners make their way to this very remote corner of the country.

T he last bit of the climb was by far the most difficult.As we climbed, local Hmong hill tribe children sang traditional songs for the hikers, hoping to get a tip.

It felt like an amazing accomplishment to reach the top! We had done it all on our own, no thanks to the hotel owners! I was going to ask for a discount, as the only reason we chose that particular guesthouse was because they told  us they would take us to the peak, but the owners never showed their face before we were picked up by our driver to go back down the mountain. I'm sure they realized that they had disappointed us. Who needs them, though!? We did it on our own!

While we did get a ride down back to the village on one of the local public trucks that began running  once the sun was up, it still felt like a great workout, and my legs were burning for the rest of the day!

In the early afternoon, we were heading back to Thoeng to board another bus to  return to Chiang Rai. We still had a few days left in the north, but it was almost time to begin making our way home from our vacation.