I was introduced by my Thai friend, Phawis about SuanPhueng in Ratchburi province and is only 2 hours drive from Bangkok. I was told about the beautiful mountainous scenery and cool climate during November and December.
On December 2009 i decided to make a drive trip to Suan Phueng with another Thai friend, Apinant and his family, wife and daugther. We had booked a camping resort at The Camp Boutique in Suan Phueng.
Suan Phueng means bee farm. However once you reach here, you will never see any farm. Checking with the locals then I understand why is it called Suan Phueng. It is attributed to a type of trees, the Bee Tree as the local called it. It has smooth tree trunk and bees will have their hives ontop of such trees because the tree has no bark, animals could not climb to harvest the honey and thus many bee hives were found on such trees. Sadly due to heavy logging, not many of such tree can be seen in Suan Phueng.
On arriving the Camp Resort will I start to have the amazing and unique experience. The weather was cool, like in Chiangmai and in the evening is really cold and can drop below 10ºC. The Camp resort, we actually sleeps in a tent. But the tent is fully equipped with modern amenities like attached toilet with hot shower, air conditioning, LCD TV with DVD players, mattress bed.. is like staying in a hotel room. Amazing.
Early the next day we participated in a 4WD drive to the summit of Khao Kajom. The road is really dirt road and we even past a little pond with water coming into our vehicle. When we reach the summit, the view was spectacular, the ocean of clouds below us was so beautiful to look at we even forget about the sunrise.
Coming down the mountain, we were brought to a natural hotspring. We even took a dip in the hotspring pool which is privately operated. We went back to camp for lunch and after we went to the river and did kayaking along a natural river. Wonderful experience.
The next day we went to visit 2 caves. One is hot the other is cool. Then we went to see the mini Grand Canyon, Pongyap. eye opening to see the soil erosion.
Unfortunately we only have 2 days in Suen Phueng. There are so much more places we did not visit. It is amazing Thailand has such beautiful places and not many tourist know about it.