Going it alone
****Nan’s testing terrain helps retain its charm among solo travellers
Peerawat Jariyasombat
Bangkok Post (dd. 9 februari 2006 dn)
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Breathtaking view from Pha Chu cliff.Visitors can admire bright Yellow Tabebuia flowers in full bloom in the Nan countryside.
While other tourist attractions in the North are packed with tourists at this time of the year, Nan, a mountain province bordering Laos continues to retain its peace and serenity, a feature that is not lost on solo travellers.
It’s a trait that has helped maintain its allure among campers and naturalists who are drawn to its rugged countryside every winter to admire vast stretches of the Yellow Tabebuia flower that are in bloom everywhere effectively changing the colour of the province’s otherwise green mountain landscape.
Deprived of open vistas, city residents who crave outdoors and a challenge or two travel to Nan and spend nights in tents pitched in the embrace of nature and watch stars twinkling in the sky and by day soak in the sunrise and breathtaking mountain scenery.
But Nan is a remote destination made more difficult by its rugged mountain ranges that are a challenge to every motorist negotiating its winding roads that snake up and down steep slopes clad in mist to get to Sri Nan National Park, their favourite spot.
On a recent visit there, I was truly impressed by the park and it slowly dawned on me why naturalists were attracted to it.
The camping ground was at the base of a cliff named Pha Chu that gave campers a panoramic view of the vast forest rich terrain and clear sky at night. Right from the comfort of my tent I could literally count the stars at night. Waking up the next day, I found the whole valley and hills covered in white mist that hung on even after the sun was high up in the sky.
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The landscape at Sao Din Na Noi is weird.
Pha Chu is a landmark of love. The cliff derives its name from a local folklore in which a girl from a rich family, denied by her parents to marry the man she loved because he was poor, committed suicide there. Her lover later followed her to the cliff and killed himself.
Some four kilometres from Pha Chu is another camping facility on the towering Doi Samer Dao that offers 360-degree view of the surrounding mountains and valleys because it is shorn of trees at the apex. Sunrise and sunset are equally captivating here, as are the nights marked by clear and cloudless skies in winter.
Another of the park’s attraction is Sao Din Na Noi, where soil erosion has created a unique landscape that looked like a cursed piece of land. Water eroded the sandy soil and turned it into strange shapes. Sao Din Na Noi straddles 20 rai and is bigger than a similar landscape in Pae Muang Phi in Phrae Province.
If you’re visiting now you won’t be seeing many tourists there, but that shouldn’t be a damper when all you are actually seeking is peace and tranquility in the embrace of nature.