Trip to the Bhumipol Dam

[Begbie]

A few photos of a trip at the start of the year to the Bhumipol Dam in the Mae Ping National Park.

To get there entailed a three hour drive from Chiang Mai south to Li then turn west for about an hour to reach the boat jetty on the water at Kor

[Begbie]

The jetty consists of a shop and a floating restaurant.



Here's the view from the jetty across the water.

The washed out colour is because of air pollution.

[Begbie]

Now we had to load a boat with lots of supplies and people.


Plenty of food.

[watterinja]

I've been inside the turbine room at that dam. Pretty impressive western engineering.

It's a lovely place, all told. Looking forward to your full trip report.

[Begbie]

Took a while but eventually we set off.

[Begbie]

Passed this floating Hotel about fifteen minutes south of the jetty.

[Begbie]

The view looking behind us to the North after about 30 minutes. Not a building in sight.

[Begbie]

We enter a gorge

[Begbie]

The river widens as we leave the gorge and this empty scenery goes on and on.

[Begbie]

After about an hour and a half we come to our first stop and the first signs of people.



A floating school

[bkkmadness]

The floating restaurant there is very good, excellent fish to eat, and a nice family run place, I've been there a few times now.

[Begbie]

The school has been abandoned as the pupils have all been sent to a monastry school in Li. This is the last school role, a grand total of four children.

[Begbie]

The schools only classroom.

[Begbie]

The village next to the school, floating houses.


All the houses we saw on the lake were raft houses.

[Begbie]

This lady came over to see what was going on.

[Begbie]

Nobody else was around so we had lunch and were just about to leave when this old boy turned up. What was interesting about him were the scars he showed us on his legs, from, he claimed, being mauled by a tiger.

[Begbie]

Lunch over and we're heading south again.


Pass this house floating in the middle of the water. Note the huge fish trap.

[Begbie]

Our second stop, another "Village" of a couple of floating houses.

[Begbie]

Dried Fish

This is why people live in this isolated area.

[Begbie]

As were about to leave the floating Hotel we'd seen earlier appeared.

[Begbie]

South again to a third stop


Note the bamboo corral on the shore. These people keep a few cattle grazing in the scrub.

[Begbie]

The biggest crowd we encountered on the dam.


Probably the entire population of this village.

[Begbie]

Heading home. Almost two hours sailing to get back to the jetty.

[zipcode]

Nice pics, thanks for sharing.

Crisp pictures, but a little green? Willing to try testing/adjusting the white balance on the camera?

[Begbie]

It was a Fuji Finepix S304. Unfortunately it's now broken so I bought a new Samsung.