Hello fellow travellers! Have you ever heard of a Mountain called "Phu Kradeung" located in Loey province, Thailand before? For us, Thais, it's impossible to never have heard of it since it's one of the most famous hiking places here.
There’s a myth saying “Only true and destined couples can make it to the top”. The reason for that is because it’s so hard to reach the top of Phu Kradeung. For today’s post, I want to take you guys with me and let’s see how I (barely) made it. lol
As you can see, I chose to go with my friends this time. I guess I could tell from this trip if our friendship will last forever or not. And as I try not to make you readers confused, I’ll refer to them as V, M and N as code names.
We started our trip with the night bus from Bangkok to Chiang Kan in Loey, a province in the north eastern part of the country. The night bus left Bangkok at 9.30 pm. This is how the bus looked.
We just tried to sleep as much as we could because it’s gonna be a long hiking day the next morning. At 5 am we arrived at the stop called “Nok Kao Cliff, or in Thai ผานกเค้า”.
There’s a shop called “Jae Gim”, a grocery store, where we got to freshen up a little. We brushed our teeth, washed our face and changed into “more” hiking clothes.
We were fresh and excited getting off the night bus.
The sun came up as we ready to leave Jea Gim and go to Phu Kradeung.
Here at the opposite side of the shop we saw a mountain. The weather was so nice and cold.
Then we took a (red)car to the national park “Phu Kradeung”, which we shared with other people, who were coming to the mountain like us. In the car, it’s pretty big and it fits many people.
We arrived at the entrance. Here’s what the entrance looks like. Here we are!
There was a set-up/background for the visitors to take pictures with. I took one with it and I’d compare with the real view later.
We bought the ticket and for Thai people, it’s only 40 Baht. (Only a little more than a dollar!)
We walked in and got our bags to the “Look Harb” counter. “Look Harb” is someone who will carry our belongings up to the mountain.
Apparently Phu Kradeung doesn’t have any transportation of any kind to go up except just hike/walk up. For us, normal (and not-so-fit) people, we wouldn’t be able to carry our belongings ourselves. So, we have to pay them to do that for us.
A good tip is to go there early so you don’t have to wait in the queue like us. There’ll be a lot of people.
First step of the stairs, we needed to take a picture with this sign “Once in a lifetime, let me conquer Phu Kradueng”
As you can see, this is the map showing the trail and the stops to the mountain top.
these are all the stop signs of each places at the beginning of the stairs. Loooooooong way to go...
Along the way, we walked with other visitors and “Look Harb”. This guy is carrying some plastic platform(?)
And there were many of them too. Carrying stuff and tourists' belongings.
Let’s hike!
Some were stairs (like this) and some were just dirt. We each got a stick to help us hike with. It’s super useful, beyond imagination!
It’s a little bit more crowded at the beginning of the hike. I think it’s nice to always have company.
The first stop, called “Sam Haek”, even though it’s not too far from the starting point, but it’s the most challenging and steep route that already wore us out.
Around 9.30 we stopped for some food to get our energy going. We had hard-boiled eggs and watermelon. Either hiking is so exhausting or we're not (physically) fit for this!
After the food, we felt much better and saw things clearer that we obviously just hangry. lol Another thing that encourages us is the view here makes us feel good about this climb.
Very nice weather too! We could look down to all the land and it's like a painting.
We tried to take pictures along the way at least with the stop signs, so we know how far we went and how close we were to the mountain top.
Which.. I'll have to show you in the next post if and/or how we made it to the top of Phu Kradeung. Hope you guys stay tune and see you again!
Stay fit and keep hiking guys!
Khob khun kaa,
Nomnomnoodle 🍜