A wonderful mountain playground with an idyllic climate, Tribal culture, and remarkable geology, carpeted in subtropical deciduous rainforest, features that combine to create a unique ecosystem. It is one of the world’s greatest Limestone landscapes. There is lots to see and do on every level in this spectacular region.
Limestone is the predominant rock. The topography has all the characteristics associated with that, riddled with caves, waterfalls, dolines, underground rivers, sheer precipices and soaring mountains. The porous Limestone holds the summer rains to feed its rivers and springs and nourish its forests and karst paving through the dry, sunlit winter until the annual rains return again.
The winter climate is heavenly, dry, bright, sunny days rising to high 20s, chilly refreshing nights with blanket dews at night that water the orchids and ferns and wrap the valleys in downy mists until the morning sun bores through an hour after dawn. March and April are hot, dry and dusty and the drought adapted trees shed their leaves and though they then burst bare leaved into rainbow hued flower, best avoided. The Green or rainy season starts in May and lasts until September, dazzling greens, ferocious jungle growth, stupendous but short-lived electric storms that drop the temperature followed by dazzling sunlight. The intermittent deluge primes the rivers for world class white water kayaking and rafting.
Karen, Lahu, Lisu and Shan Hill Tribes comprise 80% of the population, living in isolated mountain villages. Each still follows its own unique traditional culture, practising subsistence farming in cultivated pockets amongst the forest and foraging a wide range of seasonal jungle food. They wear colourful home woven costumes, speak their own languages and practise ancient religions, dignified but ever welcoming.
Sub-tropical deciduous rainforest clothes the mountains. In turn they support myriad epiphytes, wild orchids, ferns and bromeliads, scintillating with brilliant butterflies of every hue. The jungle flourishes during the rainy season and freewheels through the rainless winter drawing underground water.
Kanlaya’s lies at the very centre of this magical area, within a day’s march of the most exciting and beautiful features of the region, Thailand’s least developed, sparsely populated and most heavily forested. Use us as your incomparably luxurious base camp to explore it all. Rest and relax. We have a lovely site with wrap around views of mountains and jungle. The garden is spectacular, secluded and private, falling to the river which skirts our boundary far below. Enjoy a book, a massage, our local cuisine and walks on your own. The Jungle starts at the bottom of the garden Wellness. Meditation, Yoga, Temple visits, local organic and foraged foods, tribal market, Tibal cuisine, Beliefs and Rituals, Spirit House prayers.
Active sports including kayaking, caving, trekking, mountaineering and rock climbing. Keen photographers have a huge number of challenging subjects and changing light, sunrise, full moon, caving, kayaking, trekking, tribal faces and villages, tribal New Years, fauna, flora, markets and food.
Culture. Hill Tribe villages and crafts, languages, costumes, skills and beliefs, ethnic dancing, New Year rituals and celebrations, festivals like Loi Kran.
Expeditions, especially our unique off-road day through the orchid forest, starting with mountain top Sunrise Breakfast in our Lahu Native Rice Hut, surreal, huge and seldom visited Golden Buddha on the Burmese border, organic Lahu Arabica Coffee village and Lahu lunch. Short trek around mountain locked magical Mae Lanna Valley, a patchwork of exquisite paddy fields 250 years old.
Ready to explore? Book your stay now.