It seems impossible to give you a sense how steep are some parts of this road. (When building mountain roads here, they rarely use switchbacks. Instead, you just follow the footpaths straight up the ridge of the mountain and down the other side. Makes for a breathtaking ride!)We didn’t need 4WD this time of the year, but it was a blessing to be able to shift down to the 4WD low range of gears just to make it easier to climb the steep parts uphill and use the engine to slow us when we were going downhill. 

After traveling and sightseeing all morning, we were ready to eat lunch.

Stir-fry vegetables on rice, plus other goodies!

Off we go again. Still climbing.

Here is a junction where two roads cross each other.

Here is a very sharp hair-pin corner that we had to actually back-up to turn the corner.

No more pavement. We were on dirt road the rest of the way up and some sections were pretty wild.

Deep ruts in some parts of the road added some challenges for the driver.

A bamboo hut.

Some Mexican sunflowers along the road.

Some jungles we went through.

High mountain road.

We got tired of sitting, so we stopped and got out to do some walking.

My Karen sister and I on top of the world!

Our turn-around point was close to this golden pagoda.

Soon we tired out and got back in the truck.

One last stretch before we turn around.

We’d love to continue on, but if we don’t turn around here, we’ll get home late!