Saraburi

Nam Pha Pa Yai Climbers Camp

Nam Pha Pa Yai is the closest place to Bangkok for me to climb outdoors. Unless you’re driving, you’re stuck in the middle of nature with a small restaurant, limited internet and electricity - perfect. There’s a tree house too.

Check out the video because the vibe of this place is awesome.

How to get there

Nam Pha Pa Yai is 2 - 4 hours in Saraburi Province, north of Bangkok. In my opinion, the easiest and safest way to get there is by driving yourself, or taking a train. For driving directions from Bangkok click here

The camp is actually located in a town named Kaeng Khoi, usually the next stop after Saraburi. Trains are frequent throughout the morning, day and evening - for train times you can check this table.

The first step to get to Nam Pha Pa Yai is Bangkok. You need to board the train from either Krung Thep Aphiwat (50 baht) or Don Muang airport (30 baht) - I use Don Muang airport as it takes upwards of 1.5 hours for the train to get out of the city center. From Don Muang it takes ~1 hour 45 minutes to reach Kaeng Khoi.

Once you arrive, you need to take a motorbike taxi (200 baht) or a Song Taew (the truck with 2 rows of seats in the back) to the camp (400 baht). I personally message Joy, the nice lady who runs the camp and she arranges for people to be picked up from the station for the same price, but the car is better and had aircon. You can message the camp on Facebook.

Returning to Bangkok is the same, you can arrange transport at the camp.

Address:
84 Moo 2 Thaklor district
Keang Khoi district
18110
Kaeng Khoi

Abseiling into a bat cave

Nam Pha Pa Yai has a bat cave with an opening almost 120 meters up. We trekked to the top to find the opening and abseil down through it.

The rebolting project

We made a video for Joy, the owner of NPPY camp to help her show her vision for the bolting and maintenance of the climbing routes.

When to go

Most of Thailand falls in to these high and low season categories, though the southern Gulf coast has a different rainy season.

High season - begins in November and runs through to February, generally bringing cooler temperatures, lush greenery from the previous months of rain, and less rain outside the southern Gulf coast, where rain can continue into December. The downside is larger crowds and sometimes higher prices for tours, flights and accommodation.

Low season - generally begins in May and runs through to October. During low season the temperatures are higher, the chance of rain and storms are higher. That doesn't mean it's a bad time to visit though, if you can be flexible, there are deals to be found on flights and accommodation.

While it's always hot in Saraburi, the small change in temperature between high and low season can be just enough that the heat isn't unbearable when out and about.

Need more? Read our post discussing the best time to visit Thailand.

Where to stay

Instead of recommending hotels, we think it will be more useful to share our process so you can pick based on your own criteria for location, budget and style.

We always start our search on either Booking.com or Agoda. They have an easy-to-use interface and have some extra benefits for "Genius" and "VIP" users. You can also sometimes pay with credit card in advance if you're playing the cashback or air miles game.

Process:

1. Search for specific province, city or town.
2. Apply rating filters for a minimum rating of either 7, 8 or 9.
3. Apply other filters: budget, fitness, breakfast, etc.
4. If you have a specific location in mind, use map view to browse and make a final selection.

If there are too many properties available to choose from, increase the rating filter for less, higher rated selections.

Final notes: Prices are dynamic. Check the same hotel on both Booking.com and Agoda to see which has the best deal at any given time (go through to checkout to make sure all VAT and service charges are factored in). You can go one step further by calling the hotel and checking the price for booking directly. In our experience this saves money 50% of the time but you have less guarantees.