Phu Chi Fa Mountain (also spelled Phu Chi Fah) is a 1,442-meters-tall peak located on the border of Thailand and Laos. It is a part of the Phi Pan Nam Mountain Range. The area surrounding the summit is designated as a national forest park. From its top, one can wonder at some really stunning views of the abrupt cliff plunging into Laos to the east and the countless surrounding mountains emerging from the cloud-sea below in every direction. Owing especially to it being scarcely visited by tourists, it undoubtedly is one of the most beautiful natural spots one can visit from either Thailand or Laos, particularly so if camping on the ridge to marvel at the sunrise.
Being stranded in Chiang Rai during the outbreak of Covid-19, in March 2020, we were looking for an opportunity to briefly escape from the deserted city. The Phu Chi Fa Forest Park, we judged, was our ideal destination. So, an early afternoon, we mounted our rented scooter and rode off.
Drive to Phu Chi Fa from Chiang Rai
There is a variety of routes you can follow to get from Chaing Rai to Phu Chi Fa. The one we took, which is also probably the shortest, leaves central Chiang Rai over the road 1232 to Wiang Nuea Village. Then it gets to road 1152 and shortly before Ban Rong Village, it goes right and follows the roads 1326 and 1152 until Phaya Mengrai Town. There we stopped for a coffee and to buy some food for the night.
From Phaya Mengrai, we took the road to Ban Ta and got on the motorway to Ban Huai Sak. There it was where this trip stopped being boring. We got on the narrow road leading east, straight up the mountains. The road was so steep at times that our scooter could hardly cope. The views were constant and far-reaching. We finally made it to the foot of Phu Chi Fa late in the afternoon. We drove a total of 91 km from Chiang Rai and it took about two hours.
Climbing Phu Chi Fa
There are two ways to climb to Phu Chi Fa peak from the Thai side. One goes from Romfahthai Village by its southwestern foot and the other from Ban Rom Fa Thong Village by its northern foot.
We were planning to take the former but, upon arriving on the spot, we found the road blocked with a bar. We guessed that they may have closed the park due to the virus but there was no-one, human or sign in English, to get information from on the spot. We tried to ask a few villagers but none of them understood the meaning of any single word in English. Since there was technically nothing prohibiting entry, and we could still drive around the bar on a motorbike, we assumed that we could just go up. But before that, we decided that it worths a try to check out the other trail as well.
Bingo! We drove to Ban Rom Fa Thong and we found the road wide open. We drove up the extremely steep path until it terminated in a parking spot. We packed and got on the trail. We hiked for about 20 minutes until we reached the summit.
Camping on Phu Chi Fa
We took some time to stare at the nice surrounding views and began looking for a post to pitch the tent on. Generally, it is not a good idea to camp on the ridge of a mountain due to strong wind currents. There were some occasional gusts blowing, but nothing too strong. So we decided to take the risk and pitch the tent on the very top of the mountain.
We had tea, watched the sun plunging behind the horizon and the ensuing darkness befalling over the wild mountainous scape, noted numerous fires being lit and raging on the distant slopes through the night… eventually, we fell asleep.
It was shortly after midnight when the winds got mad and, flattening the tent down, forced us to wake up. We took the tent down quickly, packed everything, and set off looking for shelter. There is a proper camping ground about a km away from the summit, along the western trail, but we still preferred to be somewhere closer to the peak, so that we don’t have a long way to walk in the morning. We just descended a couple of hundreds of meters and pitched the tent once again on the first decently sheltered sport we ran across. Back to sleep.
Sunrise at Phu Chi Fa
We got up shortly after 5, we packed everything, and headed back to the summit. We sat by the triangulation pillar, made breakfast, and waited for the sun to emerge. The sun did for sure emerge over the eastern horizon but we didn’t get to see much of it. As is probably the case always during the dry season, the atmosphere was full of smoke that greatly confined visibility. A small fiery dot that was the sun appeared through the smog only when it reached some 10 degrees angle up the sky. Although the view was still majestic, I guess that this trip would be much more worth during the wet season, when the atmosphere is much cleaner. Anyway, we finished our breakfast, had a cup of coffee, and back down to the bike we headed to resume our road trip. The next destinations were the Doi Pha Tang Mountain and Mekong River.
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