Leech bites and swallow feet are the marks that remind us of our tough but happy moment on White Elephant Mountain. The elephant -shape mountain named White Elephant Mountain is located เท Thong Phaphume National Park in Kanchanaburi.
It took about 5 hours from Bangkok to Kanchanaburi. To go up to the mountain, private car is the best choice but the park staff also provides transportation with appropriate charges. The park entrance fee is 50 Baht per person and the fee to visit the mountain is 500 Baht per roundtrip and the carrier fee is another 50 Baht. The best time to visit White Elephant Mountain is in late rainy season to early winter. To climb up the mountain requires quite a strong physical skill as the trails are rough and rocky as well as slippery. Also, there are loads of leeches.
The staff told us that the mountain has unique view themes in each season. The mountain is full of green grass เท rainy season and it turns golden brown เท early winter. I used wide lens with zoom lens when taking photo here to get overall atmosphere. Climbing the mountain took 5 — 7 hours and finally we reached the camping site.
As the sun went down, we went up to the view spot. We walked along 2 feet wide mountain ridge with extremely deep chasm on each side. The best position when crossing-this skinny narrow ridge is to crawl. Our destination was “Top Lift Flag” mountain top which is located 1,249 meters above sea level. From up here, we saw extensive widen view of mountain ranges. I used wide lens and zoom lens to make the object seems closer than usual and also, I applied grey half ND filter to lessen light tension. Sometimes, I used low speed shutter to catch the picture of grass เท the wind.
On the way back to our camp, we tied flashlights on our heads so that we could see the way back. After setting up the tents and cooking, we gathered around bonfire under big shiny sky. We left our camp at 4 in the morning and walked back through the fog to the spot that was recommended as a place to see the best view of elephant head-shape of the mountain. We witnessed breathtaking scene of sunrise. I used wide lens and adjusted aperture to f8 to f16 and set white balance to รนท symbol and I took backlight view of the รนท and got fabulous photos before heading back to our campsite.
Although climbing up White Elephant Mountain is difficult, it’s totally worth visiting and although it is tough, I believe that where there’s a will, there’s a way.