Today we drove from Nan to Phu Ruea, and it started out a little chilly in Nan at 13 Celsius! It was fine for me but Crystal had to get her sweater she’d bought at the little village up on Doi Ang Khan right on the Thailand-Myanmar border.
Unfortunately we won’t be spending much time in Nan. Time is running out on Crystal’s holiday, and we need to do a couple driving days to get to where we want to be.
We have assessed our holiday and itinerary, and generally felt it’s worked well, but the holidays added a wrinkle we hadn’t anticipated.
Our plan was to be in Chiang Mai for Christmas, so it messed up the schedule a bit, but that’s ok.
We’ve also discovered that around New Year’s many Thai people close their businesses, no doubt partly because staff just leave on a holiday and they have no staff! I did find a few that were understaffed but still open.
We started out with breakfast at Hot Bread, a little breakfast place I ate at a couple times on my last trip here. A bit slow, but the food was great.
Breakfast took longer than anticipated, and once that was out of the way, we fueled up at a PTT (the most popular gas station in Thailand?) and we were on our way.
I had taken this same route before, and I had to change routes multiple times. I think it was 1026 to 1083 to 1243 to 1268. 1268 was the main route for a good chunk of the way. I don’t know, I will have to sit down with a maps app and have a closer look. Typical driving in Thailand though, and Google Maps isn’t a big help.
Twisty mountain roads along Laos border
The roads were twisty almost the entire way, and it was about a 320 kilometre drive, and 5.5 hours of driving time, with lots of hills. This route took us through four provinces: Nan, Uttaradit, Phitsanulok, and Loei. We also travelled through at least three national parks that I’m aware of: Si Nan National Park, Phu Soi Dao National Park, and Phu Ruea National Park.
I’d suggest getting out nice and early if you plan to do a similar drive, especially if you like to stop often! It’s a long day!
We stopped at the first overlook that had some impressive views, and the air was pretty clear. One funny thing was that after we had parked, I thought I heard a baby crying. I looked around and a lady pointed at our car. I realized a cat was already under the car and was crying. It was funny, but so weird.
At the bottom of that mountain we stopped at the bridge and took some photos. It was so quiet on that road that one truck and one motorcycle went by while we were on the bridge, and we were there for about 15 minutes.
We got back in the road, only to be held up by a herd of cattle. We had to slowly nose out way through. They just did not care we were there!
It was just a beautiful drive through some quiet parts of Thailand. It’s something you appreciate here when you can find it.
Phu Soi Dao National Park
The big stop was the Phu Soi Dao Waterfalls. It is actually a 6.5 kilometre hike up the small valley, but we only checked out the falls. They’re not huge falls, but they are nice, and we walked up to the first three drops. At some point I the future I would like to do the hike. I’m sure it won’t be an easy one, judging by the first section I was on.
We did see some a few touring motorcycles on this route, but not many! I don’t know if there are that many motorcyclists, other than local scooter riders, that take this one. When I travelled here on my motorcycle this was one of my favourite routes. I was tired after, though, because it is a long ride with A LOT of curves.
We didn’t stop a lot, but there were a few good places we did stop. There was a lot of driving to do so we couldn’t stop much.
We made it into Phu Ruea before dark, and headed to a good Thai restaurant I had eaten at before, and looked for a hotel. I was hoping to find a different one than before.
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