People worry where we will sleep. But we received a message in the morning that there's no bungalow in the national park. Instead we can rent a tent and everything else necessary for camping. Well then.
The drive takes a bit more than two hours, the last couple of dozen kilometers are spiralling curves going steeply up or down. Asphalt is just being layed. The driver doesn't say a word but in his mind he probably curses us and the day he accepted this job.
In the guard booth are two surprised guards and further away in a house five more surprised people. They are having lunch on the corridor floor and start to laugh out of surprise. Unexpected visitors arrived at a tourist attraction. All of them speak fluent Thai. The taxi driver calls someone who speaks English in order to ask what time he has to pick us up tomorrow. We specify that the pick-up should happen on Friday. The girls have found a brochure in Thai and show us picture of a house and the number 800. A house for 800 baht is fine with us. The English-speaking person in the phone says that we have to pay 650 baht. That is even more fine. Meanwhile a guy who speaks some English has appeared. The team draws a bill that says 650 baht per night for three nights (which makes 1650 according to their math) and two times hundred for park entrance. After everybody has been giggling some more are we directed to a building with two bedrooms, water establishment, huge kitchen, fridge, TV and table for doing make-up. The sign outside threatens with imprisonment for alcohol consumption. There are some more houses on the hill. Mountains all around, in front of the house big space for camping.
We have a look around. In a house that could be restaurant a boy and a girl play with their phones. No, no food. Six kilometres to the nearest inhabited place. Instead they propose that we go to see a waterfall. Only four kilometers to the waterfall. So, everything else is nice but with food it is a bit weak. We will not yet starve today because we have brought some snacks, breakfast material and two instant foods from Nan guesthouse.
We go to have a look from the view point. It is 1900 meters away. Nice path goes through the forest. On half way there is some kind of building and a bunch of bananas hanging. Unattended.
From the view point there is a view over a broad valley and some villages. We laze around, have a nap, listen how the leaves fall. A tree with white flowers, a bird sounding like a cat, frogs.
Back down we look around some more. Blue watertaps everywhere. Good conditions for camping. Otherwise we have a few suggestions.
I sleep. My throat is sore and I'm kind of dizzy. Malaria perhaps. We eat some of the snacks. Read. No internet.
The place is called Khun Nan National Park and it stays in the shadow of the bigger and better known Doi Phu Kha park. It was founded only in 2009 and is probably a try to save some more forest from cutting around here.
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