There’s two types of people who visit the Kuang Si waterfalls, hikers and swimmers. People are either dressed for hiking, with sensible shoes, cameras, bug protection and hats or in flip-flops with a towel over their shoulder. We were the latter and the minority.
When visiting Kuang Si Waterfalls our tour guide booked us a truck to drive us to the falls and gave us a quick suggestion since the majority of our group planned to swim. Go to the top and then work your way down. We paid the entrance fee and hiked up to the top of the falls, or close to the top. We took pictures on the bridge and those who wanted to go to the top of the falls (an additional hour or so hike not suitable for those in flip-flops) went. The rest of us made our way down to the other pools of blue water caused by limestone to go for a swim, or take photos in the water. There were a couple changing rooms near the swimming falls and the water was cold. We went in the morning and I spent most of my time sitting on rocks with fish nibbling at my toes. The floor of the pools are not very easy to navigate, made of sharp jagged rocks that are not cemented into the ground and liable to tip or knock you off. There’s also a strong current coming from the falls that will throw you off-balance if you try to latch onto a rock to stand. I wouldn’t suggest diving. The water isn’t clear enough to see how shallow or deep it is and it changes erratically depending on where you are at. Somewhere in at least 20 different tourist travel photos are photos of our tour group playing in the water, we ended up in the morning some of the only people going for a swim, and thus a bit like animals in a zoo to hikers.
Kuang Si Waterfalls gets busier later in the day, if you want swimmer-less photos it’s best to go in the morning while the water is cold, and if you want to swim without it being too crowded it might be a similar wish. There are however some pools higher up that you can’t swim in.
The waterfalls and light hiking aren’t the only things to enjoy at Kuang Si, there are also bears. There’s a small bear rescue in the park where you can read about the dangers effecting bears and how to help as well as see some of the bears they’ve rescued.
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