During the trip to Kitchakuch Mountain in Chanthaburi province, we stopped at a really cool waterfall.
Plew or Phlio waterfall (sometimes Thai’s spell English words multiple ways, we don’t care about English spelling, just so it sounds right!), is in a National Park. It’s not a full day attraction but this waterfall could be a nice spot to stop if you are around Chantaburi or on the way to Trat and Koh Chang.
อ่านรีวิว นี้ภาษาไทย คลิกที่นี่ค่ะ
This waterfall gets more crowded when Kitchakuch Mountain is open (normally, first quarter every year), but this is not a well-known tourist attraction for forieners, if you are travelling without local tour guide you’ll have to learn how to say waterfall in Thai (“Nam Tok”!) to find it.
For this stop at Nam Tok Plew, you can set your GPS to 12.527963, 102.179117.
Remember it takes about 3 hrs from Bangkok to get to Chantaburi. But once you get into downtown Chantaburi, it’s only about 14km away to the waterfall.
Plew waterfall is open daily from 6am – 6pm and it’s 20 baht admission for Thai kids and 40 baht for Thai adult. If you are not Thai, 100baht for kids and 200 baht for adults…
After you park the car, it’s about a 500 metre walk into the national park. But it’s not a bad walk because you get to shop!
There are so many food, souvenir t-shirts, short pants (it’s good if you forgot to bring one for the waterfall) shops along the way and don’t forget to get some green beans!!!
Why green beans? Because all the fish here love eating the green beans, healthy fish I guess!
You can buy them at 10 baht, we bought a lot but it was never enough, there are too many fish!!!
I tried to look up what kind of fish in English, but it looks like the fish here is in crap species or Soro Brook Crap. It looks like small shark for me, some of them can be like 50 cm long!
They are very friendly, no biting – kids can get in with them and have a blast. But if you have the green beans in your hand, they will be all surround you!
This is just the first part of waterfall but we can’t stop feeding already!
Some of them like to jump and play with us!
Try to remember that the sellers are using a rubber band around the green beans. The park officers will ask you to take them off before walking in the waterfall area where most of the fish are. The problem is, some of the fish will accidentally ate the rubber band and they get sick and die.
I think this is very thoughtful…but why don’t they tell the seller to stop using the rubber band then??? It would be easier to control???
I kind of like this idea because it keeps the place clean!
Inside the park zone is where you find the waterfall, no food is allowed.
Plew waterfall is good to visit anytime all year because they always have water. They also provide a lifeguard to watch out.
Don’t forget to bring the swim suites (avoid bikinis)… There are clean restrooms and changing facilities located inside the park.
It’s time to play waterfall even though it’s cold water!
What a delight! You can see there are so many locals, you might be the only foreigner there right now!
This area was a favorite for King Rama V and he used to say “I’ve seen many waterfalls but nowhere as beautiful as here, I could sit here from dawn to dusk to enjoy the waterfall ”, that just shows how much he loved this waterfall.
He and his beloved Queen Sunandha really liked to visit this waterfall, he built the Chedi or stupa named Alongkorn Chedi (right) to commemorate their first visit together in 1876.
Sadly the queen drowned when the royal boat capsized in the Chaopraya river while on the way to Bang Pa-In Palace (Ayutthaya). The grief-stricken King Rama V build the Pyramid Pranang Reu Lom (Left) in 1881 in memory of her. This Pyramid also contains some of her ashes.
For me, I would put this is a “MUST SEE” (if you are around Chantaburi or nearby), this is a really beautiful natural spot to visit.
All in all, really worth it – loads of greenery!
Visited 15-16 March 2014.
