Product Description
Doi Pui Hike is the best and most interesting day trek you can make out of Chiang Mai. Not much driving is involved and the forest and the views are beautiful. You will meet the Hmong, who are originally from Southern China. Today you will visit their villages and learn about their history, their customs and traditions and about their current way of life. Cultivation of opium was very much part of the Hmong way of life. In 1969 King Bhumibol Adulyadej visited Doi Pui. He was concerned that the slash and burn practice of opium production was, apart from being illegal, destroying watershed areas. He initiated a Royal Project, persuading several Hmong communities to move from the high mountain to lower elevations where cash crops such as tomatoes, cucumber and strawberries would flourish. You will see the remains of the old settlements and taste the strawberries as we walk past the fields. We will drive to the Hmong village of Doi Pui with a stop at the Doi Suthep temple. Start a beautiful four hour trek on a nature trail on the slopes of Doi Suthep to Ban Mae Sa Mai, the largest Hmong community in Northern Thailand. We will pass huge wild banana trees and witness a natural water source. Now and then we will enjoy the magnificent views through the thick foliage. The trek will be done at a leisurely pace. There will be enough time for making photographs and enjoying the natural environment. We will visit the small Hmong museum before return back to Chiang Mai.
Map
Itinerary
Our guide and driver will meet you at the hotel. Drive to Suthep Mountain. First we will visit Wat Doi Suthep, arguably the most famous temple of Chiang Mai, before the crowds arrive.
Walk up the 300 steps up to the temple from where you have a majestic view over Chiang Mai. We continue to Doi Pui Village, a Hmong community, close to top of Doi Pui (Doi means mountain in Northern Thai language).
Your guide will tell you about the turbulent history of this community. In the past the village was involved in opium cultivation. Nowadays the village is a major tourist attraction on Doi Suthep. We walk around the village before we meet our local Hmong guide who will accompany us on our hike to the Hmong village Ban Mae Sa Mai in the Mae Sa Valley. This hike will take about six hours including many stops to take pictures and enjoy the forest and views. Our Hmong guide will share his knowledge of the forest with us and will tell stories of the past. You will also be stimulated to recognize certain plants and trees in the forest with the tree and plant leaflet we will provide you with.
After a walk uphill we will arrive at an open area with fantastic views on both sides of the mountain. We will stop briefly to look at a footprint of Buddha before enjoying a picnic lunch at a scenic spot. We will continue through the forest to the Hmong village Ban Mae Sa Mai. This village is the largest Hmong community in Northern Thailand and gets very few visitors a marked contrast with Doi Pui Hmong Village. You will learn about a very interesting project of FORRU, the forest restoration unit of Chiang Mai University. We will visit the small Hmong museum and the FORRU tree nursery.
Return to Chiang Mai.
Chiang Mai private tours
Lotussia Travel partners with best local tour operator to provide a wide selection of multi-activity holidays in Thailand. Options include countryside cycle, biking, road cycling, jungle trek, trekking homestay, mountain hiking, peaks climbs, motorbike, scouter touring, camping, caving expeditions, street food, sightseeing, culture tours. Most of our trips are private customized, and specially designed for small group tours, family vacations. The itinerary above – Doi Pui Hike is only a sample that can be further customized to fit your requirements better. Just follow it or contact us for designing your perfect adventure in Chiang Mai, Thailand.
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Itinerary disclaimer
Occasionally our tour itineraries are updated during the year to incorporate improvements stemming from past travelers’ comments and our own research. The information given in this itinerary may be slightly different to that in the service proposal. It’s very important that you print and review a final copy of your itinerary a couple of days prior to travel, in case there have been changes that affect your plans. If you have any queries, please contact us. We are here to help you!
Please note that while we operate successful trips in Vietnam throughout the year, some changes may occur in our itineraries due to inclement weather and common seasonal changes to timetables and transport routes. This can happen with little notice so please be prepared for modifications to the route. The order and timing of included activities in each location may also vary from time to time.
Inclusions
Depending on the proposed option (semi-guide tour or all-inclusive package tour), the price may include the following services. Please bear in mind Lotussia Travel is specialized in tailor-made trips. Trip cost vary depending on group size and other details.
- Car transfers.
- Local tour guide. The English-Speaking guide is provided by default. Other language may be available upon request (with extra charge).
- Meals.
- Entrance fees.
Exclusions
Unless required most of the following services are usually not included in our tour price.
- Visa
- Flight/Train tickets.
- Accommodation.
- Tour leader.
- Local porter(s).
- International travel insurance.
- Drinks.
- Tips.
- Personal expenses.
Tour guide
Our tour guides speak English or French. They hold a university degree in tourism and national license as a guide. If you wish to send a tour leader along with any group, he or she can fully rely on the knowledge and experience of our local guides.
Remote treks are always accompanied by a local representative to deal with permits and authorities and manage the porter team. They speak the local dialects, know the cultural traditions and give tips on suggested behavior in fragile ecological areas and tribal communities. For some itineraries, the role of tour leader and representative is combined.
Driver
Our drivers don’t speak English. It’s possible that a few of them might know some basic words, such as telling time, stop, and lunch. If you’re looking for effective communication throughout the journey, we highly recommend booking a tour guide.
Trip routes
Principally, Lotussia Travel requires all the trip associates to know the destinations well by any means of traveling or enquiry to the local suppliers to figure out all the relative details of any trip. For adventure tours such as jungle trekking, mountain hiking, sea kayaking, river rafting or biking, cycling tours, Lotussia Travel will never add any new routes into available schedule until survey or pre-view it.
Accommodation
Lotussia Travel carefully choose all the hotels, guest-houses or home-stays based on service quality, location, and characteristics, doing best to make the accommodations in the remote small places as comfortable as possible. Please bear in mind that hotels in Vietnam might not be in the same standard in other country. Generally hotels in major cities such as Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh city, Hoian, Hue…are much better than hotels and guest-houses in mountainous areas.
Meals
Lotussia Travel take dinning as an indispensable experience to clients since it is an important part in Vietnamese culture. Therefore, Lotussia Travel will not intend take clients to the most expensive restaurants but non-touristy local ones which offer delicious, local food, with nice or interesting atmosphere. The restaurants might be simple in the country but LOTUSSIA Travel guarantee is sanitary and cleanliness. Or even on our trek, we encourage our cook offer client food with new tastes from day to day. During adventure itineraries to mountainous or remote areas, there is sometimes no choice for hotel and restaurants. We will try our best to bring you the best taste of local food.
Drinks
As the tap water in Vietnam is undrinkable, Lotussia Travel recommend clients to drink bottled water throughout your trip, or boiled water on treks. Lotussia Travel offers bottle water all the day, and soft drinks like Cola, Sprite or Vietnamese Tea or if possible juice in restaurants (if mentionned in itinerary). This is not automatically included in the packages. In simple restaurant or on camping, Lotussia Travel offers boiled water, instant coffee or juice, wrapped milk (Details are confirmed in bottom of your itinerary).
Transportation
In most destinations of Vietnam, all the roads are well paved though the traffic is quite messed up like in Hanoi, Hai Phong… We use proper vehicles, car, minibus or coach in good condition based on the size of the groups. We use 4WD only on the rough road where the other vehicles could not pass through or based on clients requirement on overland journeys or treks. For cycling itineraries, we usually use our support minibus or minibus with support truck. For sea kayaking, river rafting trips, diving packages we use standard boat as support. Detailed information is provided on our service proposal.
We use drivers who are native or local of each travel destination and maintain good safety records for all trips. Most of our drivers can speak English but a little bit. This is just enough to understand basic words such as “time of departure”, “stop”, “restaurants”, “hotels”…If you want to learn more about Vietnamese culture and information about sightseeing sites, booking a tour guide is highly recommended.
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