Butterflies – Doi Inthanon Nat. park

Saturday we went to see Doi Inthanon.  It’s the highest peak in Thailand at 2590 Meters high.  Approximately 8,500 ft.  Due to all the rain (we are in Vachiratha Waterfallthe rainy season now) the top of the mountain was covered in clouds and raining, so we just had a quick bite to eat at the top and went back down – pictures next time. There are 3 main waterfalls in the Park area – This is Vachiratha Falls, about 1/2 way down the mountain.  You can’t get to the base of the falls but there is a great observation deck for tourist, of course you have to walk down a trail to get there — and when we did I discovered that my batteries were dead – this is Nu’s shot.

We didn’t stop at the other Falls this day but went on to see Mae Ya Falls at the base of the mountain on the other side.  Again the rain, so we got few pictures BUT we did pass an area with hundreds of butterflies in a river-bed area —

Butterfly-DoiIntanonSunday we went back to photograph the butterflies – Doi Inthanon is about 80 KM or 50 miles from Chiang Mai – so it’s a nice easy trip.  Just as Drum - truckyou start up road to the Falls there was a Temple having some form of celebration, lots of people and several of these big drums.  and further up is an area along the river Playing-Mae Ya riverwith food and a place for families to enjoy the day – the place was packed and these boys were cooling off in the river.  I have another image in the slide-show that shows the camping huts along the river that are available.  You can camp here overnight but I bet the mosquitos would eat you alive. At least they would me.

But here are some of the shots we got of the Butterflies – again rain so we had to stop short – next time i want to make sure we get shots of all the species there – the colors are magnificent.

***** SLIDESHOW  *****

Ohhhh ya – I forgot to mention the dog – poor thing, but it has to be one of the ugliest dogs I have see in a long time – but we felt sorry and fed it our leftovers.    Ciao