DOI PHA HOM POK, CHIANG MAI 2006 Part 9

This story continues from Part 8 - The index of this series is here

**THE GORGEOUS GARDEN**

As mentioned in the last part, the main aim of Doi Ang Khang's royal research centre is to demonstrate how to grow the varieties of plants and flowers to the local hill tribe people, the poorest group of people in the country.  The centre is also well-known for its huge, distinctive, and colourful gardens.  As a person from the hotter part of the country, I found most of the plants were new to me.  Most of which I only knew them by their name, but many of them were completely new to me.  My excitement grew stronger and stronger when we travelled deep inside the centre which consists of numerous number of gardens.  The most beautiful of all was "The 80 Garden" - its name was dedicated to the King's Mom 80th birthday cerebration - where we hopped off the car and started wandering through the prime parts of the centre.  From now on, I'll let the photos describe how gorgeous the garden was.

Stunning, isn't it?  We were having a very good time inside the centre, not even any single argument.  They say that the plants and flowers in the centre are in bloom all year round.  So, this is one of the must visit if you love wandering around beautiful gardens.  The morning visit will be the best since the flowers will deteriorate a bit with the tropical sun.  One last thing, the winter Sun in Thailand rise since half past 6 in the morning and it's very strong, so make sure you arrive before 10.

In the next, and hopefully the last, part of this series I will share my experience on the Thai-Myanmar military camp and the famous 'Tanatorn' orange farm.  See you soon!!!


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DOI PHA HOM POK, CHIANG MAI 2006 Part 8

This story continues from Part 7 - The index of this series is here

**LEAVING THE DOI**

Having experience of uneasy sleep, we needed to strengthen our defence against the cold. We found the camping gears for rent were very cheap and astonishingly clean. So, we rent more sleeping bags, quilts, and pillows, 3 each.

Here is the price list:
- Sleeping back: 20 Baht each - Quilt: 20 Baht each - Pillow: 10 Baht each

Those gears worked very well and that night I had a warm and proper sleep. Others said the same thing in the next morning. Alright, I can confidently say that, if you visit Doi Pha Hom Pok during the off-peak period, you don't need to carry with you those bulky camping stuffs (unless you really want to).

We woke up early in the morning to get ready to say goodbye to this fabulous place. We returned everything we rented except the tent; it's too early so the officials said they will fold them later that day when the grass is dry (and that's another unexpected kindness of them).

'My freinds, what do you think if I say we can leave those stuffs we've brought but didn't use to those officials, they're so kind to us.' Far said while we were packing our things and found out that we've brought too much stuffs. I really thinked it was a great idea since things like rice, canned food, water or drinks are hard to find in the mountain-top.

And so we travelled on... I'll definitely come back here, I thought...

After 2 hours bad-road downhill under the shade of the tree, we spent 2 more hours uphill again. This time the road was not so bad but it was steep. More importantly, we had no tree shades along this road so we need to hide our facees from the Sun for preventing sunburn. The driver drove us by the road close to the Thailand-Myanmar border. Finally, we reached a valley of Doi Ang Khang, the place where the fair royal research station is located.

**DOI ANG KHANG AND THE ROYAL RESEARCH STATION**

The agricultural project station was set up in 1969 as a demonstration site for planting and researching flowering plants, temperate fruit trees, vegetables and other crops under the patronage of His Majesty King Bhumibol Adulyadej. Primarily a research centre, it focuses on developing a wider variety of marketable produce for the local hill tribes, which were previously cash-poor and dependent on growing illegal opium as their major source of income. The organic methods employed by the Project have had great success. Such non-tropical fruit as strawberries and raspberries, peaches, apples and plumbs and vegetables like beans and asparagus, have all done well.

Source: http://www.thailand.com/

Image source: http://siamholidaychiangmai.com/
The full adventure on this fantastic research will be fully explored in the next part...
THIS STORY CONTINUES IN THE NEXT PART