Doi Suthep Tour: Trekking at Doi Inthanon National Park with Lunch

My wife and I absolutely LOVED this tour. Don (our guide) was phenomenal, and was very informative. He made sure to take pictures of us throughout the day, ensured we had enough water, and was always checking in to make sure we had everything we needed. I would highly recommend this tour with Don for beautiful scenery, and impeccable service.

Went on this tour with just one other friend, so it was definitely a pricey option. In the end, we still found it worth it because transport to Doi Inthanon Park would have been a time costly or very tiring without having a hired car anyway. That is to say: we considered how early in the morning and tried to account for trip exhaustion. It's possible to take a Song Teow (taxi) to the park. But once you get there, you need a way to get around anyways because the points of interest are not really walkable distances if you want to do more than Doi Inthanon in that day. ~~Guide~~ Kay (Khay? K? Kuhay? Let's spell it Kay.) was our guide. Great guy who knows his stuff about each attraction and speaks English fluently. Very safe driver too. We ended up calling him Pee Kay (Brother Kay). ~~Staff/Bookings~~ May was the lady who handled bookings. She's great and answers inquiries almost same day. We exchanged emails for weeks before the trip because I wanted to drill her on the tour details to see if it was worth the $$$$$$. We ended up confirming our booking day-of though -- just through a phone call once we actually got to Chiang Mai. ~~Activities ~~ Doi Suthep Temple - we got unlucky and had really cloudy weather. We also didn't really get a tour of the temple from our guide. It was adequate, but not nearly as in-depth as the tours provided at the temple. We were free to ask our guide questions and he never rushed us though. Honestly, we'd both had our fill of temples before this tour anyway. This temple and its climb is not the aweing experience I expected, so I would say this is safe to skip unless you're going to see a monk ceremony and have it explained to you. Waterfall - nice stop. Nothing extraordinary without its hike. Lunch - WONDERFUL. I was SO STUFFED. All local food too. Our guide ordered dishes to our tastes as he asked us what we liked and what was ok. Trek - lots of fun! There's a different guide, who is a local Karen tribesperson, for this leg of the tour. We had the pleasure of trekking with Mr. Poon. Funny guy - he gives you a few toys along the way and it's great! The trek is very efficient: easy, just the right amount of time, and quite beautiful. No rushing us about. The coffee at the end was nice, but nothing really extraordinary to my plebian tastebuds. ~~Overall~~ I'm quite happy with the experience and, given our context, would still book it again even if giiven the chance to do this part over. Definitely good for someone who wants to travel in comfort (we were in a SUV) and see a LOT in one day.

We had a wonderfull day with our guide Puma. She picked us up at the hotel at 8:30 am. It was just the 3 of us, my dad, my brother and I. She drove us around the whole day and always had something to say about what we were seeing. The Doi Inthanon National Park was beautiful. The jungle like vegetation, and the cool temperatures were really appreciated. It was nice to get out of the city. A local Karen guide to us hiking for about 2 hours to his village were we were offered a very good cup of coffee that they grow on the nearby hills. The trail was relatively easy. Mostly flat with a few hills here and there. A nice waterfall in the middle. The scenery at the end when we descend towards the village is very nice. Puma drove us to another village for lunch. The food was excellent and served with lots of care. The tour of the twin Pagodas was interresting mostly because Puma enlightened us about the boudhist Philosophy and was it means for thai people. Very interresting. Before heading back to Chiang Mai, we stopped at a local food market. This day with Puma was one of the highlights of our trip. She is an excellent guide, very knowledgable and generous. She made sure to tell us what we were going to do next. We really appreciated that. I highly recommend this Tour company, they are very professionnal.