Trekking to Doi Suthep in Chiang Mai – Budget Travel In Thailand

Wat Phra That is a temple atop the Doi Suthep mountain that overlooks Chiang Mai. You can reach it by road but the most adventurous way to reach it is to trek up the mountain.

In the lobby of every hostel in Chiang Mai, you will find leaflets advertising all sorts of trips. Most of these are outside the city and a big percentage of them are specifically for tourists. We had spent a whole week in Chiang Mai without actually doing anything! Chiang Mai is like that. It’s very easy to just enjoy the laid-back culture of the city, sitting in coffee shops and bars and enjoying the heat and the mellow vibe.

In our second week in Chiang Mai, we decided we must go out and do something and we had decided we wanted to do a trek. Wherever you are in Chiang Mai, you can see the mountains overlooking the city and right at the top is Wat Phra That Doi Suthep. This seemed the logical destination for our trek.

The tour operators will provide buses to Doi Suthep and you will even find some that offer 1 and 2 night treks. We decided we wanted to go independently.

Don’t Do The Doi Suthep Hike Alone!

Whilst other travellers in our hostel had already done this, our research found that it is not at all recommended. Whilst the first part of the trek is signposted, it is the second part that is much more difficult. Your GPS/mobile signal might not work and if you have a fall, you really do want someone there to be able to help. If emergency services are called out to help lost trekkers, then the whole trek might be closed down for further use, which has happened before. It is best if you go with a group.

Doi Suthep Temple Walkers Facebook Group

You might think that the only option to go with an experienced group would be with a paid tour. With a little research, we found a facebook group called ‘Doi Suthep Walkers‘. They organise free trekking trips and welcome everyone. Unfortunately, they had no treks planned for the time we wanted to go. However, we discovered a post by a woman called Ratree who had planned to trek through the jungle, up the mountain to the Doi Suthep temple on the day we wanted to go. Result!

Beginning The Monk’s Trail, Doi Suthep

We met our fellow trekkers at a place called ‘Basecamp Coffee House‘ (now permanently closed). This was a 15 minute or so walk to the actual start of the trek, but an easy meeting point. There was Ratree and her husband John, and two other travellers that had also come for the trek. We were also joined by friends of theirs, meaning there was a nice, small group of us.

The start of the Monk’s Trail is shown in the map below:

The Monk’s Trail To Wat Phro That

The first part of the trek is the ‘easy’ part and many people choose to just trek to Wat Pha Lat and then return. This takes just under an hour and is signposted along the way with strips of orange material tied to trees (the Monks’ Trail, see!).

It would be hard to get lost in this part as there are no decisions you need to make along the way in terms of direction. Once you reach the Wat Pha Lat temple, this is where you will have your first view over the city and a chance to relax before embarking on the much more strenuous trek up to Doi Suthep. It is a beautiful area with a waterfall and is much quieter than Doi Suthep. There are no shops or markets here!

This is the point at which you have a choice.  You can either go back the way you came, having had a very enjoyable, fairly easy trek to a beautiful temple. Or… you can carry on up to the Doi Suthep temple.

If you do decide to continue, please understand that it gets MUCH harder from here on. At some point, the trek is almost vertical and it just keeps going up, up, up! One of the fellow trekkers commented that, “It is quite disheartening when you look up and all there is, is more up!” It was certainly tough going and I found it real difficult towards the end. However, I battled on and felt the utmost relief when I reached the top!

Once you reach the top of the mountain, you are rewarded with the Wat Phra That Doi Suthep temple. There is also a viewpoint offering the most amazing views over Chiang Mai. It really is breathtaking and makes that tough journey worthwhile. Our climb brought us to the back of the temple so we didn’t have to pay the foreigner’s fee 🙂

Curry For The Soul

After walking around the temple grounds, we headed to the market. This is a typically touristy market selling souvenirs and nothing of any interest to us. Further away from the temple, we had some food and this was reasonably priced (50 baht per dish) and very tasty. I had chicken curry with crispy noods. Yum! We then took a songthauw back to Tha Phae Gate which cost us 80 baht each.

Our legs were tired but we had a fantastic day trekking through the jungle. Many thanks to Ratree & John for guided us through the trek.