About Mae Sa Waterfall (Nam tok Mae Sa)
The Mae Sa Waterfall (Nam tok Mae Sa) was actually a series of 9 or 10 small waterfalls and cascades spaced anywhere between 100m to 500m apart from each other.
Depending on your criteria of what constitutes a waterfall, one might think there would be more than ten waterfalls while others might think there would be less.
But in any case, we thought that the most interesting of the ones that we counted were the waterfalls identified as 4-8 as these seemed to be more photographable as well as possessing some interesting shapes.
Most of the falls were signposted so we could identify them.
But I tended to think of this attraction as more of a Thai picnic and swimming spot as opposed to gawking at waterfalls.
That was because none of the falls individually were more than 10m tall (at least by my estimation), and we saw many Thai holiday-makers picnicking with friends and family.
In fact, it was quite a popular place despite us showing up in the late afternoon, which didn’t leave us a whole lot of time to experience all the waterfalls before it started to get dark.
As a result, our visit here felt kind of rushed, but we did get to experience all ten signposted waterfalls in our limited time.
Experiencing the Mae Sa Waterfalls
The way we did this excursion was by walking up to waterfalls 4-10 from the third and uppermost car park (out of three car parks; see directions below).
From there, we took the well-developed walks uphill all alongside the stream seeing one waterfall after the next.
Even though we thought waterfalls 4-8 were the most interesting, it wasn’t easy getting satisfying photos of most of them.
Even some of these could be construed as more like rapids or mini-cascades than waterfalls.
But once we got beyond the eighth waterfall, we continued on to see what waterfalls 9 and 10 looked like, but there was no signage and I could’ve made the case that these last two were nothing more than rapids given how the terrain was flattening out.
After returning to the third car park, we shuttled down to the first car park (the lowermost one) where our driver waited for us as we went about our hike.
I think when we hastily made this descent to see the remaining waterfalls, it seemed like we only managed to notice waterfall #1.
Apparently, waterfalls 2 and 3 either weren’t a big deal or the path we took was too far removed from the stream (assuming there was another trail we should’ve taken on the other side of the stream).
In case you’re curious, the ten labeled waterfalls of Mae Sa had the following names from the first (lowestmost) to the tenth (uppermost) waterfalls, respectively.
The first waterfall, which was near the first two car parks was named Pha Lard.
The second waterfall, which was between the second and third car parks was named Wang Yao.
Waterfall #3 was named Pha Tak.
Waterfall #4 was named Wang Sam Muen.
Waterfall #5 was named Wang Thao Promma.
Waterfall #6 was named Tard Muei.
Waterfall #7 was named Tard Phanarom while Waterfall #8 was named Pha Ngoeb.
Finally, even though we didn’t identify and see the 9th and 10th waterfalls, I believe their names were Wat Hang and Lan Thay, respectively.
Authorities
The Mae Sa Waterfall resides in Doi Suthep-Pui National Park near Chiang Mai in the Chiang Mai Province, Thailand. It is administered by the National Park, Wildlife, and Plant Conservation Department. For information or inquiries about the area as well as current conditions, visit their website.
We visited the Mae Sa Waterfall complex about 90 minutes after visiting Pong Dueat, which itself was an hour drive west of Mork Fa Waterfall.
So I guess by simple arithmetic, it was merely 30 minutes from there to the Mae Sa Waterfall.
I think it was roughly about 30 minutes driving between this waterfall and Chiang Mai.
For geographical context, Chiang Mai was in Northern Thailand roughly 700km north of Bangkok. It would take around 9 hours to drive or a little over an hour to fly between the cities.
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Sweep from left to right of one of Mae Sa's more attractive waterfalls
Sweep from left to right of Waterfall #6
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