The so-called Grand Canyon and Snow Mountain of Chonburi, Thailand

It’s one of those things you won’t hear about in any Thailand guidebooks. In fact most of the Thais themselves probably don’t even know about it and those who do, probably only heard about it from their friends who like to explore and find weird new places.

It was just a fortunate coincidence that we came across a blog post of a girl who went there, who also heard about it from someone else. It looked like a scene from a sci-fi movie – a hidden, mystical place, the bloggers and locals were calling “the Grand Canyon Chonburi”.

With just over 200 photos of this place on Instagram, this place was still a bit undiscovered and it was calling out to our adventurous soul, so we decided to take the next trip out there as soon as the weekend hit.

Hidden deep within Khiri disctrict of Chonburi, the Grand Canyon was slightly hard to find because it was nowhere on the map and for good reasons. When we finally arrived after asking around some locals, we soon realized it is a private property – possibly an abandoned mining site. Everything was in Thai at the site, including information on Pantip.com so we can’t be too sure.

After paying a fee of 10 Baht per person, we made our way through a half-barricaded entrance and towards the Grand Canyon. Upon arriving we witnessed a large ravine with a body of water. Was it a reservoir? A dam? We couldn’t be sure. All that didn’t matter though. The journey getting here and the stunning view were completely worth it.

Whatever it was, it had people talking about it. Probably just another instagram moment ?

Across the canyon was a train track. People went clicking away with no fear of their life as any minute a train would pass. As sure as we were thinking it, a loud trumpet-like sound alarmed us, followed by a massive locomotive came whizzing by, sending instagrammers scurrying about.

We then went on to search for the so-called ‘snow mountain’. After all that is what really intrigued us because there couldn’t possibly a snow mountain in Thailand and why would it be called that?

After looking about, just a few 100 meters away, we could see a small mountain, rather a hill peaking behind some bushes. We started walking towards it and the closer we got, more we realized what it actually was – a rock hill.

It looked pretty interesting and cool. We got on top and it started to feel like as if we were on the surface of the moon with crevasses and openings all over. Pebbles shifted beneath our feet as we climbed up and down. This was surely Instagram-worthy and now we knew what the fuss was all about.

Sure it was no snow mountain but it was interesting nonetheless. It’s not something you encounter everyday and you could almost say “I was at the moon”.

It is definitely worth half a day of adventure away from Bangkok city as it would only take you about 1.5 hour to get here and would be a great story to tell your friends and family.

You can even make a full day trip out of it by visiting the nearby Wang Saen Hell Garden and then finally relaxing at the Bang Saen beach. A perfect trifecta for the weekend.

This article was written in cooperation with Shayan from www.doseoflife.com
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