The GPS tried to kill us

After the elephant camp we put in the coordinates for Phu Chi Fah National park and hit the road. It’s about a 3 hour very scenic drive from Chiang Mai. One 20 minute period of this drive was actually one of the scarier moments of our life! We were about 20 kms from our destination when we came to a point in the road that the concrete turned to dirt but there was a huge steel professionally made, painted sign (just like on US highways) saying “↑ Phu Chi Fah ↑ “ . It was very reassuring actually. After talking about it, sitting in our AWD Honda CRV, it lured us in and we decided to proceed. Surely the sign wouldn’t guide us into danger?!!? Right??? WRONG. A short ways onto this dirt road, the downward grade and the narrowness of the road became too much to stop or turn around. Then came an increase in the downward grade and multiple hairpin or winding curves! In addition, the road became one of two consistencies, either dry with 6 inch water furrows in it, or six inches of dry sand like dirt. If we stopped we would get stuck, we couldn’t turn around (too narrow), the bumps were so harsh at times we didn’t know if we’d blow a tire or knock something loose under the hood. Furthermore, we had no idea how long we would be in these conditions. The possibilities were much scarier than what actually happened, thankfully. Breaking down or becoming stuck on a dirt road in Northern Thailand mountains on the Laos border in the late afternoon with no cell phone was not appealing at all!!!! Thankfully, in about 25 minutes it became concrete again without incident but the GPS is not to be trusted again!!!!!!!! This is a picture after we stopped to catch our breath when we hit the sacred paved road again!