Tourist appeal blossoms in chilly Chiang Rai

Tourists numbers are proportionately rising at a Chiang Rai national forest and several mountain trekking sites thanks to the cooler weather and the breath-taking vistas of fog it creates.
Somphet Pang-ngern of the Ngao-Ngaow Watershed Forest Management Unit said many visitors had stayed overnight in the campsite at his office this past weekend, waking early to scale the several peaks nearby.
He’s within easy hiking distance of Mounts Phu Chi Fah, Phu Chi Dao and Phu Chi Duan as well as Doi Pha Mon and Doi Pha Tung.
Somphet said they breathe in the cool mist and then come back down later in the morning to gasp at vast fields of indigenous plants whose leaves turn red with the cold and will soon sprout white flowers.
It’s the Wild Himalayan Cherry, dubbed “Thailand’s sakura”, and it covers the slopes around his forestry management site.