Hup Pa Tat

December 28, 2025

Lan Sak to Huai Khot

Hup Pa Tat

We decided last night that after our difficult ride yesterday we wanted to have a different kind of day. I wanted to see Hup Pa Tat which is a unique place less than ten miles away and on route to our next guest house possibility. So, Hup Pa Tat.... a long time ago there was a mountain mostly made up of limestone. After millions of years of rain falling on the limestone mountain a lot of the limestone inside dissolved and a large cave was formed. So, essentially there was a hollow mountain. The forest remained on top of the mountain. But one day the cave collapsed. Probably a very long time later humans farmed the land around the mountain. When they looked up at the mountain it looked normal, just a forested mountain. They could not see that the top was gone and that it was like a sunken bowl or caldera inside.

Then, in 1979 a curious monk, Suntitumgosol, was climbing the mountain and when he got to the top he discovered that there was a hidden jungle down below inside the mountain. There was no way down into it unless he rappelled and monks weren't known to be keen on rappelling. That was too difficult so for five years the monk thought about how to make an easier route to get inside. In 1984 he obtained some explosives, as monks do. Rappel, no. Explosives, yes. The monk blasted a passageway into the hidden sunken jungle at ground level and people flocked to see what was inside the mountain. It has since become a preserved area like a national park and the monk became famous.

So, today, there is a passageway, basically a long cave, that you can walk through and then it opens up and you are inside a kind of magical world.

I had read about this and my plan was to pack up, ride there first thing, see Hup Pa Tat, and then ride on for another ten or more miles and call it a day. Andrea was all for it.

We started out early without breakfast. Immediately, not three meters from our guest house the scenery was gorgeous with early morning sunlight hitting every dew laden weed or rice stalk. The road was a beauty too heading straight into the rising sun. It was lined with teak trees for miles. For once there were guard rails on the road. They were not needed but they were there and I mention it because there are thousands of places where guard rails would save lives in Thailand. I mean, just about every kilometer of road in Thailand could use guardrails and that is because of the way the Thais build roads. Just off any shoulder of any road there is a dropoff from just a little bit to meters, straight down. If any vehicle goes off the road just a little bit it will roll for sure. Even if we, on our bikes, were to fall off into the ditch it could be quite serious. It's insane that there are no guard rails and funny that on this particular road there were.

Our nice bungalow just outside of Lan Sak, Thailand.

I just realized the guard rails are probably to protect the trees from getting injured.

At roadside shrines we sometimes see dresses. This practice connects to deep-seated Thai beliefs in animism and Buddhism, showing gratitude and honoring spirits with beautiful, culturally significant items, creating vibrant, meaningful cultural displays. But it's pretty strange too.

Most soil I've seen in Thailand has a lot of clay.

A brand new concrete road on the way to Hup Pa Tat.

Anyway, it was the exact opposite ride from yesterday. There was little traffic, the road was new, wide shoulders, no sugar cane obstacle course and I was stopping constantly to take photos of the scenery. For one thing, we were right next to karst mountains (karst is limestone). The mountains were jutting up here and there from flat farmland. I had no idea this part of Thailand looked like this. It was also very peaceful with few vehicles. Approaching Hup Pa Tat we saw what looked like a nice restaurant and figured we better eat something before we were in the midst of Thai tourist heaven where the price for our usual simple meal would be greatly higher. And it was a wonderful meal for the normal price in the still early morning with really nice restaurant owners and lots of cute dogs who came over to say hello many times in hopes of getting some of our food. Nope.

Thais are always so curious. The restaurant couple asked us lots of the usual questions. Then, the woman was on her phone with a friend and as we ate we heard her repeat everything we had told her about ourselves. It was pretty fun. What it means is that there are very very few foreign tourists who ever visit these parts. We are a major curiosity for the locals. That's fine with us. We haven't seen another foreign tourist since Luang Prabang! That's a long way! But that's the way we like it. It's more of an adventure with no other foreign tourists. And the dogs at the restaurant thought we were pretty interesting too.

Just a short distance down the road from our restaurant we turned onto the entrance road to the place of wonder. But first, the wonder was more like a Thai Disneyland. Thais love this sort of tourist thing. They go wild with flowers planted everywhere and for some reason they are obsessed with growing strawberries. So, there was a large strawberry growing area, selfie platforms with hearts to pose in and a coffee house of course, restaurants of course, more selfie stuff like stairs to nowhere except to more selfies with the flowers in the background and then all the little cute (I guess) figures of animals and little people akin to Hello Kitty crap. But it's Thai and I've come to just shrug and smile.

There was a parking lot filled with cars moving in slow motion which the Thais do too often. I didn't want to deal with the parking lot because we were fully loaded and I wanted to stash our bikes with all our stuff anywhere near to the entrance to that cave the monk blew open with explosives. A security guy immediately started directing us towards the ticket booth. We could see where the ticket booth was but he wanted to help us rare foreign tourists. I don't know what he was thinking, however, how we were going to get in line for tickets with our bikes. Maybe he did finally realize that and that's why he left to go back to directing slow motion cars in the parking lot. We were fortunate he left us because I didn't want to have any sort of discussion about where our bikes were going to go with someone wearing a uniform who would no doubt have his own ideas about where the bikes should go.

I know how the Thais are and nobody, not a soul, would care or heavens no, would do anything about it if we just parked our fully loaded bikes right against the side of the ticket booth: Right out in the open, basically, right where nobody would even think of stealing anything. That's what we did and it appeared that not one person took note. And there were loads of people there too.

Then, we found out that the tickets were 200 Baht each, not the 30 Baht I had read about. That's $6 each. We never pay hardly anything for entrance fees so this was quite a lot. Andrea said it was too high and didn't want to go. I said, "We're here, 8,000 miles from home. We're going to go to this damn thing. There's magenta millipedes in there!" She agreed and I didn't have to force her through the blasted cave.

Canes made from bamboo were available to use on the hike.

After I paid, they handed me a big flashlight and we were off to another epoch. I fully expected dinosaurs and a Jurassic Park sort of experience. We walked through the cave passageway to the jungle interior and then down a lot of stairs. What hit us first was how humid it was. It probably wasn't all that hot but the humidity must have been nearly 100%. Even I was sweating. I thought it would be cooler once we got to the bottom, the floor of the jungle.

An arial view of Hup Pa Tat that was on a plaque in the park.

And it was. It was nice and cool. I think the humidity gets trapped halfway up and since there is little chance of ever having a wind inside the air just doesn't move. It was a strange sensation. There was a muffled sound to everyone's voices and it definitely was a unique experience. There were some trees, not huge. Most of the vegetation was a type of palm; Arenga Pinnata or feather palm which is native to SE and South Asia but not so much nearby. It is definitely an ancient plant. I think we had seen a lot of them in the Mekong delta area of Vietnam a few years ago. Their palm fronds are the longest I've ever seen. They can be up to 12 meters long! I don't think it was like there were plants that exist nowhere else in the collapsed cave. I thought that would be the case but I don't know why I thought that. Birds flying over can drop seeds of anything. But there was supposedly a rather rare tortoise that lived there, the elongated tortoise. And, there were pink dragon millipedes. We saw neither of these however.

A not very good photo of the pink dragon millipede.

The path wound around large, now lying down, stalactites and stalagmites, which prove there was once a cave there. There were actually two big rooms to the place, like two big amphitheaters of jungle plants. The air was so still inside that it made for a strange feeling. Looking up at the steep wooded sides we could see the encircling ridgelines 200 meters above us. It felt like everything was trapped there, not that a tree anywhere gets to move from place to place! It was a little like one of those big jars that people plant things inside and then seal it up and it is an entire ecosystem that can remain sealed for many years. If the tortoises could climb stairs I guess they could escape but they probably have everything they need there. We could see that in the rainy season water must stand in places. Other than that, there was no stream running through it.

The top of the ridge 200 meters above the forest floor.

We climbed the stairs back out and we both thought it was well worth the admission price. It was fun to watch all the Thais explore the rare things they have in their own country. The middle class has grown to be so big now that loads and loads of Thais venture out to explore their country. It's great to see. I remember when this never happened. It's still so new to the middle class Thais that there is an excitement everywhere we go where there are numbers of Thai tourists. I love seeing how happy they are. No matter if they are on vacation or it's just a weekend jaunt or retired, everyone is totally enjoying life.

A homemade ride in the tourist area near the ticket booth.

Not at all surprised, our unlocked bikes were just as we left them with all of our panniers untouched. It's so nice to not have to worry about them. As we were getting ready to get our bikes out of there the same security guy again appeared and he was all smiles and even helped Andrea lift her bike over the tall curb.

The area between the parking lot and the ticket window was full of Thais milling around enjoying everything. There was a terrarium of sorts stocked with the pink dragon millipedes for people to see up close. There was a guy playing guitar and singing, a guy yelling out, "Ice Cream!" in English (we were the only foreign tourists) every few seconds and cars were still driving around in the parking lot as slow as could be. We didn't get any ice cream or coffee or any of the other foods that are always available at Thai tourist places.

We got back on the road still heading south and viewed the mountain we were just inside. From the outside it looked like any other mountain in the lineup. The area up to each mountain is farmland and the rice had just been planted. In the muddy paddies were thousands of water birds. Lots of different species. I was stopping constantly to take photos of the countryside but if I was a birder I'd have stopped even more often. What a place!

No idea which one houses Hup Pa Tat. I was too busy enjoying the scenery and birds.

I forget which one of these has Hup Pa Tat inside it.

Then we eventually rolled into a small town that didn't have much to offer. Just on the other side of it we found another good guest house and nearby restaurant. Thailand is so amazing about providing these things. We hardly ever worry. It seems we will always be taken care of with our simple needs but the Thai way of taking care of us means that our simple needs are met and then exceeded.

lovebruce

Today's ride: 21 miles (34 km)
Total: 819 miles (1,318 km)

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Comment on this entry	Comment	6

Steve Miller/GrampiesVery glad that today was a better day. Aren't you glad you paid the admission?
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3 weeks ago

Jen RahnWhat a great experience! All because a monk was willing to use explosives.

I wonder if there are any strong opinions about this amongst present day monks.

Like, "Hey, us monks are supposed to be all about peace and it sucks that this one guy gets so much attention for deciding to use explosives."
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3 weeks ago

Gregory GarceauI would have gladly paid ten times the 200-baht/$6 fee to get into Hup Pa Tat. What a cool place!
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3 weeks ago

Bruce LellmanTo Jen RahnOne never knows what monks have up their sleeves.
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3 weeks ago

Bruce LellmanTo Gregory GarceauYes, what a bargain really. We get stuck in "it's all relative" mode over here because the $6 entrance fee is four times the price of an average meal and half the price of a room for the night. In the States that would mean that going to a state park would cost about $50.

The other thing that grates on us a little bit is that the admission fee to this and other parks is 30 Baht for a Thai whereas a foreign tourist has to pay 200 Baht. Almost seven times more!? I know foreign tourists can afford it but it just seems kind of out of proportion.
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3 weeks ago

Bruce LellmanTo Steve Miller/GrampiesOh yes, we had to go to this. Often the waterfalls or other popular sites are way off our route up in the mountains. We never get to go see them because we are on our way fully loaded and can't take the time or energy to get up there and then also get to our next guest house before dark. But this site was right on our way.
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3 weeks ago